A Deep Hybrid Model for Recommendation Systems
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• 2009.09748 • Published
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Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Alice Hartley's Happiness
Question: What is this product? | Praise for Philippa Gregory: 'Philippa Gregory... is a mesmerizing storyteller.' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'Fascinating... engrossing... mesmerising... riveting... compelling... a pacey narrative that is just begging to be read in one sitting.' SUNDAY EXPRESS 'A rich brew of passion and intrigue.' DAILY MAIL |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Georgiana's World
Question: What is this product? | Reviews for Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire 'Mesmerizing' Antonia Fraser, Literary Review 'Well-written, extensively researched and highly readable Gripping' Stella Tillyard, Mail on Sunday An outstanding debut by a young biographer fully in control of her sources, and with an easy and elegant writing style' Roy Strong, Sunday Times |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Where Have All the Boys Gone?
Question: What is this product? | PRAISE FOR WHERE HAVE ALL THE BOYS GONE: 'Funny, touching and a little bit rude, Jenny Colgan's talents are well showcased as she tries to answer the age-old questions: sheep or shopping?' She 'Colgan's witty and original style...makes it a stand-out read.' Heat 'full of warmth and humour' Marie Claire PRAISE FOR JENNY COLGAN: 'Full of laughs and lipgloss - brilliant.' Company 'Snappy and wickedly entertaining.' You 'Funny stuff.' Heat 'Funny, magical and moving.' Time Out 'A sharp, witty love story.' Observer 'Colgan is on top form with her latest outrageous romp' Cosmopolitan 'Jenny Colgan is one of the leaders of the pack... Fast-paced, funny, poignant and well-observed' Daily Mail |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Dumb Witness: Complete & Unabridged
Question: What is this product? | "One of Poirot's most brilliant achievements" Glasgow Herald |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Lost Babes: Manchester United and the Forgotten Victims of Munich
Question: What is this product? | 'A thorough, and thoroughly moving, piece of work' Daily Telegraph 'Highly recommended' When Saturday Comes 'Covering a lot of ground, this splendid book provides a fascinating insight into many of those affected by the tragedy' Winger 'Jeff Connor has written a deeply moving account of what happened...Connor's well-researched account is a powerful, enthralling and poignant addition to the growing literature on British soccer.' BBC History Magazine 'A fascinating memoir' The Times |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Street Kid: One Child's Desperate Fight for Survival
Question: What is this product? | ‘If Judy’s story doesn’t become a book, DVD, video I’ll be amazed.’ John Peel |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: I Know This Much: From Soho to Spandau
Question: What is this product? | 'An eminently readable memoir, from dirt poor beginnings in Islington via full blown pop stardom to the older, wiser man today. The stories come thick and fast, vibrant memories of London's post-punk club scene, especially, jump off the page and even the personal stuff is sensitively handled. Hats off to him.' Q Magazine 'In parts a fascinating slice of social history, focusing on the realities of working-class life in north London in the 1950s through to the 1970s, before segueing into Spandau Ballet, the Blitz club and the 1980s recession-spiting New Romantic movement, through to Live Aid, and beyond.' Barbara Ellen, Observer |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: 1D One Direction: Forever Young
Question: What is this product? | One Direction are: Liam Payne, 20, Harry Styles, 19, Louis Tomlinson, 21, Niall Horan, 20, and Zayn Malik, 20. The band were formed in The X Factor's Bootcamp stage in 2010, and left the competition in its final round. They went on to break several records, top the charts internationally, and sell over 20 million records worldwide. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Times Codeword 4
Question: What is this product? | The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785. A daily cryptic crossword is published in the main newspaper, and the Mind Games section in the Times2 supplement contains sudoku, Killer Sudoku, KenKen, word polygon puzzles, and a quick crossword. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Treasures, A Reading/Language Arts Program, Grade 1, Book 5 Student Edition
Question: What is this product? | McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: People of the Sea: The Search for the Philistines
Question: What is this product? | Were the Philistines uncouth, violent, dull-witted barbarians, as the Old Testament portrays them? Definitely not, argue the authors, both professors of archeology and history in Israel. Drawing on 40 years of their own research and synthesizing information from a century of archaeological digs, the Dothans reconstruct the complex material culture of the Philistines, a seafaring people who settled on the coastal plain of Palestine after being defeated by the Egyptians around 1200 B.C., and who subsequently fought violently with the Israelites. As revealed in more than 100 drawings and photographs, the Philistines were accomplished architects, sophisticated urban planners, highly artistic potters, weavers and ivory and metalworkers. A civilizing force, they sat before Aegean-style hearths, practiced elaborate religious rituals and cremated their dead. This intricate account moves the Philistines from the mists of myth onto the stage of history. Natural Science Book Club dual main selection; Reader's Subscription Book Club and Library of Science Book Club alternates.Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Electricity and Electronics Technology, Student Text
Question: What is this product? | McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Betty Crocker's New Cookbook: Everything You Need to Know to Cook (8th Ed.)
Question: What is this product? | The gift edition ofBetty Crocker's New Cookbookis a handsome, boxed, spiral-bound version of this staple in American cooking. Recipes for heartland classics like Buffalo chicken wings, sour cream coffee cake, deviled eggs, Cincinnati chili, and meatloaf are joined by such international favorites as Steak au Poivre, enchiladas, spaetzle, gazpacho, and risotto. The rather dry, utilitarian text is studded with explanations for cooking techniques as basic as ingredient-measuring and as nuanced as deep-frying; precise and lucid, these directions are never condescending, which should comfort novice cooks while still offering useful refreshers to more experienced hands in the kitchen. A fine, all-around introduction to casual, home-style American cooking.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Alpha Teach Yourself Accounting in 24 Hours
Question: What is this product? | Prentice Hall Teach Yourself in 24 Hours will teach readers the basic principles of the monthly accounting process-- from the chart of accounts to financial statements. Ideal for bookkeepers, accounting clerks, students and small business owners, lessons include accounting procedures, assets, liabilities, revenue and expenses, accounts receivable and payable, payroll and cost of goods sold. Accounting software programs are also discussed. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Every Manager's Desk Reference
Question: What is this product? | Dale Furtwengler (president of a business consulting firm specializing in performance) on performance appraisals; Stephen Windhaus (consultant for a marketing and planning firm), Janet Bigham Bernstel (author and financial journalist) on getting organized; George Kops (founder of Focus Communications) on business presentations; Jeff Davidson (author of The Complete Idiot's GuideA (R) to Time Management and The Complete Idiot's GuideA (R) to Stress Management on time, stress management and project management; Elizabeth O'Leary (Senior Editor in AOL's newsroom) on leadership; Nancy Stevenson (author and corporate manager) on motivating people; plus top authors on Business Writing, Customer Service, Effective Meetings, Conducting a Job Interview and more! |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Juran on Quality by Design: The New Steps for Planning Quality into Goods and Services
Question: What is this product? | Business WeekThe man who taught Japan how to manage for quality. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Imperial Fictions: Europes Myths of Orient
Question: What is this product? | 'A provocative and appropriately subversive book.' The New York Times'Admirably pinpoints those aspects of the West's imaginative involvement with the East which are still painful to own up to fully.' The Sunday Times--This text refers to an alternatePaperbackedition. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The DNA of Success: Know What You Want to Get What You Want
Question: What is this product? | Jack M. Zufelt is one of the top professional speakers in America and a highly acclaimed trainer, consultant, and entrepreneur. He is a Presidential Medal of Merit recipient, and was selected byWinner's Digestas one of the most effective speakers in the United States. He lives with his wife in Littleton, Colorado. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Fire
Question: What is this product? | The events explored inFirefocus on "people confronting situations that could easily destroy them," and as he demonstrated inThe Perfect Storm, Sebastian Junger is skilled at breaking such situations down to their core elements. In this exciting book, he reports on raging forest fires in the Western U.S, war zones in Kosovo and Afghanistan, the deadly diamond trade in Sierra Leone, the plight of travelers kidnapped by guerrillas in Kashmir, the last living whale harpooner on the Caribbean island of Bequia, and the Greek-Turkish conflict on Cyprus. There is also a fascinating chapter on John Colter (explorer, fur trader, and member of the Corps of Discovery led by Lewis and Clark) in which he comments on the need for some to seek adventure as a means of escape from our relatively safe modern world: "Life in modern society is designed to eliminate as many unforeseen events as possible, and as inviting as that seems, it leaves us hopelessly underutilized.... Threats to our safety and comfort have been so completely wiped out that we have to go out of our way to create them." Junger has a keen grasp on this mentality (in fact, he exhibits it himself), and inFirehe clearly explains the fears and difficulties involved in reporting on dangerous events from foreign countries: "You have two weeks to understand a completely alien culture, find a story that no one has heard of, and run it into the ground. It never feels even remotely possible. But it is." And he has done it well in this thrilling book.--Shawn Carkonen--This text refers to theHardcoveredition. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Claws
Question: What is this product? | Grade 9 Up-Jed Berg's life is perfect. A junior in high school, he is an honors student, and has a senior as a girlfriend and the top singles position on the varsity tennis team. All of his friends are in awe of his close relationship with his architect father and his attorney mother. Then he receives an e-mail from a girl who demands that he confront his father about the affair he is having with her mother, and Jed's perfect world starts to disintegrate. Weaver's wonderful use of language ably reflects the teen's turmoil as his anger and hurt about his father's behavior spills over into his daily life, and he soon finds himself in detention for punching out his locker. This is just the start of Jed's troubles. His friends and family are shocked and it takes a girl in detention to put his situation in perspective when she quips, "preppies in a downward spiral are fun to watch." The novel, a character study of Jed, follows him through his spiral as events spin out of his control. The other characters aren't as strongly developed but that is to be expected since it is his reactions that are at the center of the book. This is a good choice for fans of more serious realistic fiction, such as Alex Flinn's Breaking Point (HarperCollins, 2002) or Laurie Halse Anderson's Catalyst (Viking, 2002).Betsy Fraser, Calgary Public Library, CanadaCopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Chez Panisse Vegetables
Question: What is this product? | By now just about everybody whose interest in eating runs deeper than fast food knows about Alice Waters. The creator of Chez Panisse, the legendary restaurant in Berkeley, California, that helped create a modern American cuisine based on fresh ingredients, she is also equally well-known as a teacher and cookbook author.Chez Panisse Vegetablesis one of the best new cookbooks of the season; it's as useful for its information about vegetables and how to use and handle them as it is for its irresistible recipes, which lead to complex and interesting dishes built from simple ingredients and simple techniques. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Scottie the Daughter Of...: The Life of Frances Scott Fitzgerald Lanahan Smith
Question: What is this product? | The only child of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, Frances Scott Fitzgerald (1921-1986), nicknamed Scottie, was a Washington Post columnist, playwright, composer and producer of musicals and a Democratic Party insider. This harrowing biography by her daughter shows that Scottie adored her alcoholic father but felt oppressed by his celebrity. Blocking out her mother's descents into insanity, Scottie, as depicted here, developed into a maddeningly controlling person who manipulated her four children until they were driven to rebellion. One son, Tim, shot himself in 1973 after years of mental instability. In an alternately touching and plodding narrative, Lanahan, an artist and illustrator, describes her power struggles with a mother whom she resented for her self-preoccupation, her heavy drinking and her hasty remarriage in 1967 to Grove Smith after divorcing lawyer Jack Lanahan. By generously quoting from Scottie's unpublished and unfinished 74-page memoir as well as from letters, diaries and interviews, Lanahan sheds new light on the tumultuous Fitzgerald family saga. Photos not seen by PW.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Blue Jay's Dance: A Birth Year
Question: What is this product? | Mothers often cling to single moments, small gestures, and specific memories in order to grasp all that happens in the first blurry year of a baby's life. InThe Blue Jay's Dance, writer Louise Erdrich has assembled a photo album of snapshots such as these: the days and images that collectively define the passion, ambivalence, yearnings, and satisfactions of carrying, birthing, and nurturing a baby. "Any sublime effort has its dark moments," says Erdrich, referring to a rather bleak snapshot of mother isolation. "Perhaps, if anything, the meaning in this book for others may be this: Here is a job in which it is not unusual to be, at the same instant, wildly joyous and profoundly stressed."The Blue Jay's Danceis a fresh and masterful book that avoids all the sticky clichés while still managing to articulate the depths of mother-baby love.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Perfect Murder, Perfect Town: JonBenet and the City of Boulder
Question: What is this product? | The murder of 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey on Christmas night in 1996 inspired sensational headlines throughout the nation--and plunged idyllic Boulder, Colorado's justice system into an ongoing nightmare. InPerfect Murder, Perfect Town, bestselling author Lawrence Schiller explores both the child's mysterious death and the exhaustive, yet often mishandled, investigation that has, in the two years since the crime, failed to produce either a plausible scenario or a killer. The more that was discovered about the crime, the less likelihood there seemed of tying all the evidence into a single theory that fit the murder scene. Meanwhile, conflicting agendas and personalities within the Boulder police department, the district attorney's office, and the sheriff's office escalated a war that has all but eroded the picture-postcard image of liberal, laid-back Boulder.Schiller has a knack for distilling context and meaning from violent crime. He partnered with Norman Mailer on the Pulitzer Prize-winningExecutioner's Songand was O.J. Simpson's choice of confidante forI Want to Tell You. (From there, he went on to write the definitive story of the Simpson defense,American Tragedy.) ForPerfect Murder, Perfect Town, Schiller and researcher Charles Brennan conducted more than 500 interviews, examining the exculpatory evidence from every conceivable point of view to create a fascinating portrait of what happens when tragedy strikes in paradise. There are no easy answers, no simple outs; the murder of JonBenét Ramsey remains unsolved.--Patrizia DiLucchio |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Scam Dogs And Mo-Mo Mamas: Inside the Wild and Woolly World of Internet Stock Trading
Question: What is this product? | Would you take a stock tip from a guy named Tokyo Joe? How about one from Big Dog? If so, you should read this book. If not, you will probably findScam Dogs and Mo-Mo Mamasan entertaining curiosity about the type of person you're glad you're not. Tokyo Joe and Big Dog are two of the main characters inScam Dogs. They post messages on Internet stock discussion boards, touting stocks most of us have never heard of. When these guys say "Buy," thousands of people do. The problem for those thousands is the gurus may have done all their own buying before recommending a stock to others and start selling as soon as their followers start buying. At least that's what the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Tokyo Joe of doing when it filed a civil complaint against him in January 2000. (This practice, according to the helpful glossary at the back of the book, is called scalping.) Emshwiller is a reporter forThe Wall Street Journalwho has covered numerous frauds and swindles--in fact the book started as aJournalarticle about the colorful Tokyo Joe (How colorful? He usually trades naked in his Manhattan apartment, sitting in the lotus position while staring at multiple computer screens.)Scam Dogswill be most useful to those contemplating a career in day trading. However, when you see how many ways there are to get fleeced, you may decide it's a more remunerative not to become a sheep.--Lou Schuler |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Dragon's Gate (Golden Mountain Chronicles)
Question: What is this product? | This 1994 Newbery Honor Book, a prequel to Dragonwings, tells of 14-year-old Otter's 1865 emigration from China and subsequent travails in California. Ages 10-up.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to thePaperbackedition. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Little Bear's Friend, An I Can Read Book
Question: What is this product? | Else Holmelund Minarik first introduced readers to her timeless character in the classicLittle Bear. Publication of this book, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak, launched the I Can Read series. This much-loved author continues to write stories for children at her home in North Carolina.In addition toWhere the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak's books includeKenny's Window,Very Far Away,The Sign on Rosie's Door,Nutshell Library(consisting ofChicken Soup with Rice,Alligators All Around,One Was Johnny, andPierre),Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life,In the Night Kitchen,Outside Over There,We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy, andBumble-Ardy.He received the 1964 Caldecott Medal forWhere the Wild Things Are; the 1970 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration; the 1983 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, given by the American Library Association in recognition of his entire body of work; and a 1996 National Medal of Arts in recognition of his contribution to the arts in America. In 2003, he received the first Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, an international prize for children's literature established by the Swedish government. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Today I Feel Silly: And Other Moods That Make My Day
Question: What is this product? | Jamie Lee Curtis has starred in many movies, but she says that the children's books she has written mean more to her than any of her films. She and artist Laura Cornell have previously collaborated on two bestselling books:Tell Me Again About the Night I Was BornandWhen I Was Little: A Four-Year-Old's Memoir of Her Youth. This time, we follow a little girl with curly red hair through 13 different moods, beginning with silly: "Today I feel silly. / Mom says it's the heat. I put rouge on the cat / and gloves on my feet." Of course, silly soon turns to grumpy and mean... to excited... to confused, and so on. Recognizing one's own mood swings is a developmental milestone, one that some adults haven't yet mastered! Cornell's watercolor illustrations--wildly expressive and energetic--effectively capture the volatility of our redheaded star. Whether she is happy or mad or dancing a solo in jazz, she is always "full of pizzazz," and this book is, too. A clever mood wheel on the last page allows young readers to change the little girl's expression--both her eyes and mouth. This is silly fun with a smart lesson for children from ages 4 to 8.--Marcie Bovetz |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Grandfather's Dance (Sarah, Plain and Tall)
Question: What is this product? | Grade 3-6–This conclusion of the Sarah, Plain and Tall stories gathers the whole cast of characters for a prairie wedding. Changes in the family are reflected in the changing times; Papa goes to town to buy a car to transport his guests. Fourth-grade Cassie narrates the tale of welcoming the relatives and preparing the celebration for her sister, Anna. But her focus isn't on the bride and groom. Partly, she ponders why people would want to get married; her dream companion would be one of her dogs. She closely observes Grandfather and Jack, the oldest and youngest members of the family. Their special bond shows up in the way Jack talks, walks, and behaves like Grandfather. Cassie observes how Grandfather is preparing for death. Even the sad ending highlights the story's overall theme of family ties as they weave through generations. MacLachlan maneuvers the reminders of previous plots fairly gracefully, allowing the book to stand on its own. As before, her beautifully straightforward language reflects the manner of the hardworking people of the Great Plains. Although at a reading level for early chapter-book readers, this story's themes make it appropriate as well for upper elementary readers.–Pat Leach, Lincoln City Libraries, NECopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Yours Until Dawn (Avon Historical Romance)
Question: What is this product? | This newest Regency-era romance from veteran author Medeiros (One Night of Scandal, etc.) starts out as a crisp, bright tale of a woman whose no-nonsense attentions revitalize a disabled lord, but a jarring plot twist sends the book into a black hole that might leave readers feeling disoriented and cheated. Earl and naval hero Gabriel Fairchild lost his sight, fallen-angel good looks and fiancée after the battle of Trafalgar, only to acquire tart-tongued nurse Samantha Wickersham, a young woman with a shadowy past who refuses to let Gabriel sink into self-pity. As she teaches him how to navigate his mansion and regain his independence, he guides her along a journey of shared desire. But while Samantha gives Gabriel her heart, she keeps her secrets, vanishing when it becomes clear that Gabriel can finally survive without her assistance. Here the story staggers, revealing vital information hardly hinted at before. Then Samantha, who's cast as a straight shooter in the first half, inexplicably begins acting out of character, sending the final portion of the book into a spin that grows worse with every page. Though the first portion of the novel is as finely written as Medeiros's best novels, the ending proves to be a rough landing.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty: The Game, the Team, and the Cost of Greatness
Question: What is this product? | Nothing succeeds like success. But human nature being what it is, some people get a thrill when the successful fail. Is it a matter of rooting for the underdog or bringing the haughty and powerful down a peg? Olney, who covers the Yankees for theNew York Times, addresses the question in this sympathetic assessment as he selects their seventh-game loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2001 World Series as the turning point in the team's decline. Recounting the details of the contest, he flashes back to reveal how individuals contributed to the Yankees' accomplishments in recent years. Of course, the one person who demands success, and for whom even victory doesn't seem to be enough, is owner George Steinbrenner. Much of the ill will generated by the legions of Yankee-haters can be traced to Steinbrenner, with his bullying and deep pockets. Olney's work puts the team under a microscope, as if the daily exasperations, disappointments and even boredom suffice to explain why their fortunes reversed. Olney gives a good account: success is hard work that, like prayers, sometimes does not yield the hoped-for result.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Modern Classics, Book 2: Cookies, Biscuits & Slices, Small Cakes, Cakes, Desserts, Hot Puddings, Pies & Tarts
Question: What is this product? | Internationally popular Australian cookbook author Hay (The New Cook) follows the savory classic dishes of Modern Classics 1, with this latest on sweets. Illustrating each recipe with a beautiful color photograph are simple instructions that place all the dishes within the reach of every level of cook. Covering the gamut from cookies to tarts and cakes to hot puddings, her recipes are simple, contemporary takes on time-honored favorites and new standards. From traditional Gingerbread Men and rich Chocolate Mousse to her individual Tiramisus, she includes dishes suitable for any occasion and any palate or diet. Many of the dishes are accompanied by captioned photographs and have adaptations of the finished dish, as with the Shortbread, which provides lemon, ginger and lavender varieties to tempt the palate. At the other end of the scale, "Short Order" pages have several short, snappy recipes that are quick, easy-to-prepare dishes and range from Tart and Bun Glaze to the Creme Anglaise. Ingredients, methods and bakeware asterisked within the recipes are described in the Glossary and Tools sections at the back of the book for those for whom further explanations are needed. Giving true meaning to the title Modern Classics, the resulting volume is a welcome addition to any cook's shelf and is sure to add to the ranks of Hay's growing number of fans.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths
Question: What is this product? | At a time when conflicts among three of the world's major religions--Islam, Judaism, and Christianity--are in the global spotlight, Bruce Feiler offers a stunning biography of the one man who unites all three religions: Abraham. "The most mesmerizing story of Abraham's life--his offering a son to God--plays a pivotal role in the holiest week of the Christian year, at Easter," writes Feiler. "The story is recited at the start of the holiest fortnight in Judaism, on Rosh Hashanah. The episode inspires the holiest day in Islam, 'Id al-Adha,' the Feast of the Sacrifice, at the climax of the Pilgrimage. And yet the religions can't even agree on which son he tried to kill." Herein lies the irony and perfection of Feiler's timing. As we struggle to find a path to peace among these three religions, all warring in Jerusalem, near the stone where Abraham brought his son for sacrifice, this captivating biography speaks to Abraham as the metaphor he is: the historically elusive man who embodies three religions, a character who has shape-shifted over the millennia to serve the clashing goals and dogma of each religion.Anyone seeking to understand the roots of tension in the Middle East need look no further than the final half of this book, where Feiler interprets the meaning of Abraham as seen through the prism of each religion. Surprisingly, the book is as entertaining as it is thoughtful: Feiler is a masterful writer with a warm, humorous voice, a dazzling way with metaphors, and an underlying intelligence that comes through in every passage.Abrahamdeserves the highest of recommendations.--Gail Hudson--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Burro Genius: A Memoir
Question: What is this product? | Growing up in the 1940s on his family's gracious Southern California ranch, young Villaseñor envisions a cowboy's life, just like he's seen in western movies and learned from his loving but occasionally abrasive Mexican-bornpapá. Reality, however, finds him in the unwelcome company of an American school system where he doesn't fit in and is ostracized thanks to his undiagnosed dyslexia and limited English. Throughout this spirited memoir, novelist and nonfiction writer Villaseñor (who has chronicled his family history inRain of Gold;Wild Steps of Heaven;Thirteen Senses; etc.) faces an entourage of abusive teachers and embittered classmates who chip away at his confidence, leading him to the brink of adopting a personal philosophy of violence-for-respect. He seeks support in the strength of his close-knit family, especially his brother Joseph. But when Joseph dies of a rare, unexplained disease, Villaseñor tries to embody what made his brother such a hero. Despite all the humiliation, frustration and hardship Villaseñor encounters throughout his youth, he maintains an astonishingly positive and compassionate attitude. His retelling of sometimes humorous, sometimes chilling childhood experience is at once painful and gratifying. He imaginatively and poetically remembers his tumultuous childhood with the simplicity of a child and the introspection of a sage. Photos not seen byPW.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Dead Wrong (Joanna Brady Mysteries, Book 12)
Question: What is this product? | The solid 12th entry in bestseller Jance's lively crime series (Exit Wounds, etc.) to feature Joanna Brady, sheriff of Cochise County, Ariz., finds Joanna newly reelected and about to have her second child. When the cops learn that a murdered man with a sordid personal history has links to one of Arizona's most prominent judges, Joanna's investigation turns up a connection to an early case of her late father's, an honored sheriff. Next, the brutal beating of Jeannine Phillips, an Animal Control officer, leads the sheriff's department, its staff already stretched thin, to a confrontation with a notorious ranching family and suspected illegal immigrants. Then Joanna's obnoxious in-laws arrive for the imminent birth. In a heart-stopping climax, Joanna shoots a suspect as he tries to kidnap two children. Subplots dealing with social issues such as alcoholism and dysfunctional family relationships lend moral weight. As usual, Jance deftly brings the desert, people and towns of southeastern Arizona to life.Author tour. (One-day laydown July 25)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Holy Fools
Question: What is this product? | "Love not often, but forever" is an adage with dangerous implications for Juliette, a gypsy acrobat in 17th-century France who strives to balance her wild yearnings with her hard-won wisdom in this passionate novel from the author of Chocolat and Five Quarters of the Orange. Harris gave hints in the latter novel of a darker sensibility, and she fully indulges that inclination here, broodingly exploring the mechanics of mass hysteria and the clash between the desires of the flesh and spiritual cravings. Juliette's involving narration alternates with the amoral reflections of her rogue lover, Guy LeMerle, the Blackbird ("He lived on perpetual credit and never went to church"). LeMerle is the leader of Juliette's troupe, which is disbanded after a clash with a town's authorities; at the same time, LeMerle abandons the pregnant Juliette, who is persecuted as a witch. Five years later, Juliette, now called Soeur Auguste, and her daughter, Fleur, have found refuge at the Abbey of Sainte-Marie-de-la-mer on the Brittany coast. Then LeMerle arrives at the abbey disguised as Father Confessor to the newly appointed abbess, Isabelle, a preternaturally severe girl of 12 whose uncle happens to be LeMerle's nemesis, the bishop of vreux. Isabelle causes Fleur to be removed from the abbey, and while Juliette struggles to get her back, LeMerle manipulates the nuns into believing Satan has their convent in thrall, in a complicated plot to revenge himself on the bishop. This fictional cassoulet suggests Aldous Huxley's nonfiction work The Devils of Loudun, with "demonically" possessed nuns caught in a web of sexual repression and political and religious oppression during an era of upheaval in France. Harris adds spicy characterizations, tart dark humor and seductively pungent prose, and poses some provocative questions: can 65 nuns be so easily misled? why does Juliette find herself drawn to such a selfish man? The title supplies an answer with almost unholy glee.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Safety of Objects
Question: What is this product? | Praise forThe Safety of Objects: |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Blue Blood (Debutante Dropout Mysteries, No. 1)
Question: What is this product? | “BLUE BLOOD is delightful, witty and oh-so-proper (not!). Susan McBride has Dallas society on its designer-clad toes!” (Carolyn Tillery, Society Editor, Park Cities People)“Susan McBride kept me laughing all the way through this delicious romp of a mystery.” (Tess Gerritsen)“BLUE BLOOD is a wry, dead-on social commentary masquerading as a can’t-put-it-down mystery. Highly recommended....” (John Westermann)“Susan McBride has an engaging new heroine in Andrea Kendricks.” (Thomas Perry)“Andrea Kendricks...is a treasure.” (Charlaine Harris)“BLUE BLOOD has it all--suspense, humor, friendship, snobbery and televangelists...BLUE BLOOD is positively gripping.” (Sarah Strohmeyer)“All mystery readers should applaud!” (Jerrilyn Farmer)“A totally fun ride...McBride has created a fresh new voice that fans of the genre undoubtedly will enjoy.” (Romantic Times BOOKclub)“Off to a smashing start...keeps the reader smiling.” (Monterey County Post)“McBride has created a delightfully wacky amateur detective in BLUE BLOOD. The writing is fresh, funny, and entertaining.” (Wichita Eagle)“A very witty and clever mystery...I, for one, can’t wait for the next installment.” (Sauce Magazine (St. Louis)) |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: When the Tuna Went Down to Texas: How Bill Parcells Led the Cowboys Back to the Promised Land
Question: What is this product? | "Are you kidding me?" asked aSports Illustratedstory in early 2003, shortly after autocratic Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones hired equally autocratic Bill Parcells ("The Big Tuna") as head coach of his NFL franchise. It was a sentiment repeated throughout the world of professional football, a world in which the fortunes of the Cowboys had declined after three consecutive 5–11 seasons, and a world Shropshire seeks to expose in this uneven examination of the Cowboys' 2003 season. Shropshire (Seasons in Hell; etc.), a writer forPlayboy,Sports Illustratedand Slate.com, takes a magnifying glass to the Cowboys' amazingly improbable 10–6 record in Parcells's first season. He plumbs coaching philosophies, quarterback controversies and locker-room gossip, seeking to understand the reason for the team's first trip to the playoffs since 1999. Shropshire pores over each game, and even transcribes the coach's public utterances. Inexplicably, though, he devotes little space to the relationship between owner and coach. Maddeningly digressive (containing meditations, at times lengthy, on subjects such as zombies, the 2012 Olympics, motivational speaking and hurricanes) and listlessly written ("[Flozell] Adams is a player of gigantic physical size"), the book will appeal to only the most devoted fans.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful Are Shaping a New American Catholicism
Question: What is this product? | Religion journalist David Gibson delivers a controversial state of the union address for the Catholic Church. Although his writing style is journalistic, heavily infused with quotes from big-name sources in the Church, Gibson is not an objective reporter. He clearly believes that the current crisis is not about a lack of faith in God—but, rather, a breakdown of trust in the Church's leadership. Of course, an obvious source of this breakdown is the leadership's failures to stop, prevent, or even publicly acknowledge the fact that Church personnel were sexually abusing children and young people. But he also believes that the ensuing crisis of 2002 was a kind of "perfect storm" where powerful forces of tension that "have been bearing down on Catholicism for decades" converged into an inventible, stormy clash.Gibson is most controversial when portraying a seemingly indifferent and arrogant Church leadership that is reticent to hold itself accountable to its constituents. Ultimately, he stands most closely beside the diverse and devout lay people of the Church—-seeing them as the instigators of vast and necessary reforms. Historically, change in the Catholic Church has come from the bottom up. But in earlier times that change was kick-started by its influential religious orders of monks and nuns as well as individual champions, such as Teresa of Avila and Hildegarde von Bingen. Nowadays, "with the numbers of nuns and brothers falling even faster than the priests," it is up to the laity to create the revolution from below, according to Gibson. He sees this laity leadership rising out of a movement that is in already in place in America, where the laity now read the Scriptures at Mass, distribute the Host to congregants, teach Catechism classes to the next generation and serve as chaplains in nursing homes and college campuses. While it's too soon after the storm to completely assess the damage or predict the course of the future--Gibson is certainly offering a conversation that this crisis-battered community needs to have.--Gail Hudson--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Herbal Kitchen: Cooking with Fragrance and Flavor
Question: What is this product? | There are herb gardens, and then there's the Herbfarm, both an award-winning restaurant with an award winning chef, Jerry Traunfeld, and an herb farm--literally. Over the past 14-years Traunfeld has had a farm's worth of herbs to work with in his commercial kitchen and at home. He opened the doors to his commercial kitchen withThe Herbfarm Cookbook. And now he takes us home withThe Herbal Kitchen. Here's a hint: It's all about heightened flavor through the creative use of herbs.There's the humble roasted oyster, for example. Traunfeld makes a sauce of fresh sorrel, butter, shallots, cream, and lemon juice. Each oyster sits in its half shell atop a dollop of the sauce and bakes until plump. They are served topped with fine strips of fresh sorrel. Briny oyster meets tart sorrel gentled with cream and butter. Does it get any better? You bet it does. Roasted Oysters with Sorrel Sauce is but an appetizer, along with Minted Lentil and Goat Cheese Strudel, and Spicy Verbena Meatballs.After a brief introduction to herb basics, Traunfeld moves on to appetizers and drinks (the Rosemary Gin and Tonic sounds intriguing). Chapters that follow cover soups, salads, fast suppers, meals for a crowd, intimate feasts, vegetable dishes, breads, and desserts. Consider the Shiso Crab Cocktail, or Black Olive Roast Chicken, Sides of Salmon Slow-Roasted in Dill, or Lavender-Rubbed Duck Breasts with Apricots and Sweet Onions.These are precise, carefully thought-out and executed recipes, and they are all built around the masterful use of fresh herbs. You will want to attend to your gardening as much as your cooking with this book as inspiration. Work throughThe Herbal Kitchenfrom front to back and you will transform your relationship with herbs. The food you cook and eat will never be the same. And that's a delicious gift from one of the mighty.--Schuyler Ingle |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Music Through the Eyes of Faith
Question: What is this product? | This thought-provoking study of music-as-worship, written for college students, leads musicians to a better understanding of the connections between music-making and Christian faith. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Just Shy of Harmony
Question: What is this product? | InJust Shy of Harmony, Philip Gulley's follow-up novel toHome to Harmony, the award-winning author again offers matchless slices of small-town life as he catches us up on the doings of the quirky characters that inhabit this small community. Beloved minister Sam Gardner slides into depression as his little Quaker church, which once had goals of spreading the gospel and ending world hunger, now juggles such lofty issues as what type of vanity table to put in the ladies' restroom and the progress of its chicken noodle sales. Gulley gently pokes fun at evangelical Christianity's foibles through his characterizations, including church member Dale Hinshaw's "Scripture egg project" (chickens lay eggs with Scripture in the yolks to reach the unsaved). There are poignant moments: Wayne Fleming's wife Sally has deserted him and his three kids, and now Wayne is in love with lawyer Deena Morrison, owner of the Legal Grounds Coffee Shop. When Sally returns home, Wayne must make the most difficult decision of his life. Reading one of Gulley's stories is as comfortable as sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch, listening to an old friend spin tales. This installment in the Harmony series is sure to win Gulley some new fans and please his loyal following.--Cindy Crosby--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Pale Blue Eye: A Novel
Question: What is this product? | Starred Review.Bayard followsMr. Timothy(2003), which brilliantly imagined the adult life of Dickens's Tiny Tim, with another tour-de-force, an intense and gripping novel set during Edgar Allan Poe's brief time as a West Point cadet. In 1830, retired New York City detective Gus Landor is living a quiet life at his Hudson Valley cottage, tormented by an unspecified personal sorrow, when Superintendent Thayer summons him to West Point to investigate the hanging and subsequent mutilation of a cadet. Poe aids Landor by serving as an inside source into the closed world of the academy, though Poe's personal involvement with a suspect's sister complicates their work. But the pair find themselves helpless to prevent further outrages; the removal of the victims' hearts suggests that a satanic cult might be at work. This beautifully crafted thriller stands head and shoulders above other recent efforts to fictionalize Poe.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Men of Bitter Creek
Question: What is this product? | “Joan Johnston [creates] unforgettable subplots and characters who make every fine thread weave into a touching tapestry.” (Affaire de Coeur)“Regency and historical romance devotees will find Johnston lively and well-written, and her characters perfectly enchanting.” (Publishers Weekly)“...a brisk romance chock full of compelling conflicts and strong local color.” (Publishers Weekly on Comanche Woman) |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Love Overboard CD
Question: What is this product? | Stephanie Lowe decides Maine schooner captain and pirate descendent Ivan Rasmussen deserves to be called Ivan the Terrible. The house she just bought from him is falling apart and possibly haunted. He complains about her fish-eye stew and burnt chocolate chip cookies. He makes fun of her hair after she's had to comb it while using a toaster as a mirror. And on top of all that, he has the nerve to be charming, handsome and overboard in love with her. This is one pirate captain who is determined to acquire the treasure of a lifetime.Performed by C.J. Critt |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Sleeping Through the Night, Revised Edition: How Infants, Toddlers, and Their Parents Can Get a Good Night's Sleep
Question: What is this product? | Jodi A. Mindell, Ph.D., is associate director of the Sleep Disorders Center at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. She holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, is professor of psychology at Saint Joseph's University, and is the author of numerous publications on pediatric sleep disorders. She lives with her family in Rosemont, Pennsylvania. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Krusty Book (The Simpsons Library of Wisdom)
Question: What is this product? | Matt Groening, the creator and executive producer of the Emmy®Award-winning seriesThe Simpsons, as well as creator of the cartoon strip "Life in Hell" and the animated FOX television seriesFuturama, is the man responsible for bringing animation back to primetime and creating an immortal nuclear family. In addition, Groening formed Bongo Comics Group in 1993 and currently serves as publisher of The Simpsons Library of Wisdom, Simpsons Episode Guides, Simpsons Comics, Bart Simpson Comics, Radioactive Man Comics, Simpsons Comics Treasure Trove, the annual Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror, Futurama Comics and more than 36 comic compilations, as well as many instant classics includingBart Simpsons Guide to Life,The Simpsons HandbookandThe Simpsons Uncensored Family Album. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Devil's Bones: A Novel (Body Farm Novels)
Question: What is this product? | The lack of a strong central plot undercuts the third forensic thriller by bestseller Bass, the team of Dr. Bill Bass, founder of Tennessee's world-renowned Body Farm, and journalist Jon Jefferson (after 2007'sFlesh and Bone). Two cases occupy Dr. Bass's fictional alter ego, Dr. Bill Brockton—the death of Mary Latham, a 47-year-old Knoxville native, whose charred remains were found in a burned-out car, and a disreputable Georgia crematorium that simply dumped bodies on its grounds. These probes soon take a backseat to a cat-and-mouse game with the doctor's arch nemesis, Garland Hamilton, who tried to frame him for murder inFlesh and Bone. When Hamilton escapes from incarceration before going to trial, Brockton must keep looking over his shoulder. While a smattering of Bass's trademark authentic forensic detail lifts this main narrative thread, a more focused look at a single case might have made the novel a better read.(Feb.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus: The Definitive Collection of Mystical Gospels and Secret Books about Jesus of Nazareth
Question: What is this product? | Marvin Meyer is one of theforemostscholars on early Christianity and texts about Jesus outside the New Testament. He is Griset Professor of Bible and Christian Studies at Chapman University in Orange, California. Among his recent books areThe Gospel of Judas,The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus,The Gospels of Mary,The Gospel of Thomas, andThe Nag Hammadi Scriptures. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Pride and Petticoats
Question: What is this product? | Shana Galen is a former public school teacher in Houston, Texas. Newly married, Shana lives with her husband and two cats. She writes almost full time, which requires daily trips to the mall because shopping is the only activity that really allows her to think. (That's her story, and she's sticking to it!) |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Clear: A Transparent Novel
Question: What is this product? | With her fresh, confident sophomore novel (afterBehindlings), Barker offers a meditation on illusionist David Blaine's feat of self-starvation—44 days spent suspended in a clear box above the Thames River. Analytical narrator Adie, a prickly, literate young man who works in an office overlooking the Blaine spectacle, carefully dissects the psychology of both Blaine and the hordes of onlookers who feed him attention as he slowly starves. Meanwhile, Adie's own drama unfolds, set off by a strange encounter with Aphra, a perplexing girl with a freakish sense of smell and a fetish for vintage shoes who spends her nights on the riverbank watching Blaine sleep. As Adie's involvement with Aphra grows more complicated, his initially cynical interest in Blaine becomes more obsessive. "Perhaps... this loopy illusionist has tapped into something.... A fury. A disillusionment," Adie muses, ruminating on the vileness and beauty that Blaine's presence has brought out among Brits. Despite Adie's determined disdain for the man, the unwelcome "Hunger Artist" leads him to wonder if "Some things are beyond the reach of art. Some words are meaningful beyond understanding." Offbeat and authentic, intellectual and accessible, Barker's is an original voice.(June)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The religions of man: By Huston Smith (Perennial library)
Question: What is this product? | The World's Religions, by Huston Smith, has been a standard introduction to its eponymous subject since its first publication in 1958. Smith writes humbly, forswearing judgment on the validity of world religions. His introduction asks, "How does it all sound from above? Like bedlam, or do the strains blend in strange, ethereal harmony? ... We cannot know. All we can do is try to listen carefully and with full attention to each voice in turn as it addresses the divine. Such listening defines the purpose of this book." His criteria for inclusion and analysis of religions in this book are "relevance to the modern mind" and "universality," and his interest in each religion is more concerned with its principles than its context. Therefore, he avoids cataloging the horrors and crimes of which religions have been accused, and he attempts to show each "at their best." YetThe World's Religionsis no pollyannaish romp: "It is about religion alive," Huston writes. "It calls the soul to the highest adventure it can undertake, a proposed journey across the jungles, peaks, and deserts of the human spirit. The call is to confront reality." And by translating the voices of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, Christianity, and Judaism, among others, Smith has amplified the divine call for generations of readers.--Michael Joseph Gross--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Petrella at Q (Perennial British Mystery)
Question: What is this product? | Born in Lincolnshire, England, Michael Francis Gilbert graduated in law from the University of London in 1937, shortly after which he first spent some time teaching at a prep-school which was followed by six years serving with the Royal Horse Artillery. During World War II he was captured following service in North Africa and Italy, and his prisoner-of-war experiences later leading to the writing of the acclaimed novel 'Death in Captivity' in 1952.After the war, Gilbert worked as a solicitor in London, but his writing continued throughout his legal career and in addition to novels he wrote stage plays and scripts for radio and television. He is, however, best remembered for his novels, which have been described as witty and meticulously-plotted espionage and police procedural thrillers, but which exemplify realism.HRF Keating stated that 'Smallbone Deceased' was amongst the 100 best crime and mystery books ever published. "The plot," wrote Keating, "is in every way as good as those of Agatha Christie at her best: as neatly dovetailed, as inherently complex yet retaining a decent credibility, and as full of cunningly-suggested red herrings." It featured Chief Inspector Hazlerigg, who went on to appear in later novels and short stories, and another series was built around Patrick Petrella, a London based police constable (later promoted) who was fluent in four languages and had a love for both poetry and fine wine. Other memorable characters around which Gilbert built stories included Calder and Behrens. They are elderly but quite amiable agents, who are nonetheless ruthless and prepared to take on tasks too much at the dirty end of the business for their younger colleagues. They are brought out of retirement periodically upon receiving a bank statement containing a code.Much of Michael Gilbert's writing was done on the train as he travelled from home to his office in London: "I always take a latish train to work," he explained in 1980, "and, of course, I go first class. I have no trouble in writing because I prepare a thorough synopsis beforehand.". After retirement from the law, however, he nevertheless continued and also reviewed for 'The Daily Telegraph', as well as editing 'The Oxford Book of Legal Anecdotes'.Gilbert was appointed CBE in 1980. Generally regarded as 'one of the elder statesmen of the British crime writing fraternity, he was a founder-member of the British Crime Writers' Association and in 1988 he was named a Grand Master by the Myst--This text refers to an alternatePaperbackedition. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog
Question: What is this product? | Labrador retrievers are generally considered even-tempered, calm and reliable;and then there's Marley, the subject of this delightful tribute to one Lab who doesn't fit the mold. Grogan, a columnist for thePhiladelphia Inquirer, and his wife, Jenny, were newly married and living in West Palm Beach when they decided that owning a dog would give them a foretaste of the parenthood they anticipated. Marley was a sweet, affectionate puppy who grew into a lovably naughty, hyperactive dog. With a light touch, the author details how Marley was kicked out of obedience school after humiliating his instructor (whom Grogan calls Miss Dominatrix) and swallowed an 18-karat solid gold necklace (Grogan describes his gross but hilarious "recovery operation"). With the arrival of children in the family, Marley became so incorrigible that Jenny, stressed out by a new baby, ordered her husband to get rid of him; she eventually recovered her equilibrium and relented. Grogan's chronicle of the adventures parents and children (eventually three) enjoyed with the overly energetic but endearing dog is delivered with great humor. Dog lovers will love this account of Grogan's much loved canine.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Tide Knot
Question: What is this product? | Praise for The Tide Knot: "Intensely compelling! gorgeous." Amanda Craig, The Times "Dunmore's graceful style is what makes the unbelievable believable!" The Independent on Sunday "Like the ocean itself, this book is deep and strange and marvellous." Nial MacMonagle, The Irish Times "This is a wonderful fantasy story!" Jan Winter, Inis Praise for Ingo: "Ingo has a haunting, dangerous beauty all of its own." Philip Ardagh, Guardian "The electric thrill of swimming with dolphins, of racing along currents, and of leaving the world of reason and caution behind are described with glorious intensity." Amanda Craig, The Times "Compellingly lyrical." Independent "Helen Dunmore may have a few drowned readers on her conscience, so enticing and believable is the underwater world she creates in Ingo." Telegraph "Helen Dunmore is an exceptional and versatile writer and she writes with a restrained, sensual grace." Observer "A remarkable fantasy! It's a haunting, beautifully written book which creates a totally believable parallel world." Northern Echo "Ingo is an intoxicating adventure! Wonderful, evocative storytelling." Publishing News--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men
Question: What is this product? | To a growing list of books about the myths and mysteries of American boys and young males, Kimmel, a sociologist and author ofManhood In America, adds this deft exploration grounded in research. Based on more than 400 interviews, over a four-year span, with young men ages 16–26, Kimmel's study shows that the guys who live in Guyland are mostly white, middle-class, totally confused and cannot commit to their relationships, work or lives. Although they seem baffled by the riddles of manhood and responsibility, they submit to the Guy Code, where locker-room behaviors, sexual conquests, bullying, violence and assuming a cocky jock pose can rule over the sacrifice and conformity of marriage and family. Obsessed with never wanting to grow up, this demographic, which is 22 million strong, craves video games, sports and depersonalized sexual relationships. In the end, Kimmel offers a highly practical guide to male youth.(Sept.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: A Career Girl's Guide to Becoming a Stepmom: Expert Advice from Other Stepmoms on How to Juggle Your Job, Your Marriage, and Your New Stepkids
Question: What is this product? | Jacquelyn B. Fletcher is a freelance writer, marketing and publishing professional, stepdaughter, and stepmother of three young children. She writes forYour Stepfamily and Daughters, and has contributed to numerous other publications. She teaches writing at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, where she lives. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: My Battle of Algiers: A Memoir
Question: What is this product? | Starred Review.In this candid, powerfully wrought memoir, Pulitzer Prize–winner Morgan (Churchill;Maugham;Reds) recalls his service as a young officer in France's bitter war in Algeria. A native of France, Morgan was working as a journalist in the United States in the mid-1950s when he received his conscription notice. Following a brief posting to a regiment in the Algerian countryside, he was transferred to Algiers, arriving just in time for the Battle of Algiers, which featured history's first "systematic use of urban terrorism." Placing crude bombs at bus stops, cafes and soccer stadiums, the rebels hoped to "create a climate of insecurity" among the French and to invite reprisals that would turn "moderate Arabs into rebels." The French responded by using torture to extract intelligence. "Torture produced immediate results," Morgan notes, and the French slowly dismantled the urban terrorist cells. By the end of 1957, France had won the battle, but it would lose the war. The country's tactics sparked an antiwar movement in France, and the war continued to rage in the Algerian countryside until the French conceded defeat in 1962. Morgan recalls this fierce history with an intensity that belies that it happened a half century ago. Anyone interested in the origins of modern terrorist tactics will benefit from his recollections.(Feb.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Monday Morning Mentoring: Ten Lessons to Guide You Up the Ladder
Question: What is this product? | “In an easy, readable style David Cottrell identifies the essentials for quality leadership and management. Don’t miss Monday Morning Mentoring!” (Ken Blanchard, Co-Author The One Minute Manager® and The Secret) |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Charlotte's Web: The Movie Storybook
Question: What is this product? | Relive the adventure of Wilbur and his new-found friends with this photo-packed storybook |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Collins Atlas of 20th Century History
Question: What is this product? | Richard Overy is a leading authority in the field of modern history. He is Professor of Modern History at Exeter University, and is the general editor of The Times Complete History of the World.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: From Sea to Shining Sea: From the War of 1812 to the Mexican War; The Saga of America's Expansion
Question: What is this product? | "Another colorful, absorbing historical narrative from Leckie....Vivid, engrossing." ----Kirkus Reviews |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: High Rise: How 1,000 Men and Women Worked Around the Clock for Five Years and Lost $200 Million Building a Skyscraper
Question: What is this product? | Planned during the mid-1980s real estate boom, the office tower built by developer Ian Bruce Eicher at 1540 Broadway in midtown Manhattan became a victim of the soaring office-vacancy rates of the '90s. In a crisp narrative told with pizzazz, Newsweek senior writer Adler describes the project from financing through completion. A morass of disputes, snafus, red tape, cost overruns and personality clashes beset the Broadway State building, which was conceived to bring a glorious shopping mall to the Times Square area along with corporate tenants. Ultimately, the German publishing firm Bertelsmann, owner of Bantam Doubleday Dell, bought the tower from the bankrupt Broadway State Partners last year; it is now the Bertelsmann Building and will be headquarters for the Manhattan staff of the publishing conglomerate. The book suggests that erecting Egypt's pyramids must have been child's play compared to constructing a Manhattan skyscraper. A great read. Photos. First serial to New York magazine.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s
Question: What is this product? | Otto Friedrich (1929-1995) was a journalist and cultural historian. A contributing editor atThe Saturday Evening PostandTimemagazine, he was the author of fourteen books, includingBefore the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Foreign Student: A Novel
Question: What is this product? | The year is 1955 and a young Korean man has just arrived at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Chang Ahn has been dropped off at night in the middle of nowhere and left to make his way to the campus on his own: "This was the petrified figure that Mrs. Reston, the vice vice chancellor's housekeeper, found at the door to the vice vice chancellor's house.... You would not have known that the motionless person had just walked two miles straight uphill with a steady and terrified step." It soon becomes apparent that Chang, called Chuck, suffers from more than just fear of the dark. During the Korean War, he was first a translator for the United States and later a prisoner in a Communist internment camp. Even in the U.S. "he could not accept the lack of precaution as a sign that he was safe." On his first day in Sewanee, Chuck meets Katherine, a young woman who lives in town and is the secret lover of a professor who was once a classmate of her father's--and the man who first seduced her when she was 14.The American South in 1955 is hardly an ideal locale to start an interracial romance, yet Katherine and Chuck are drawn to each other almost from the start. What begins as friendship gradually becomes something more, yet it takes a surprise proposal from Katherine's lover and a summer spent apart to make them face their true feelings. Susan Choi writes this first novel with assurance, weaving Chuck's terrible experiences of war and Katherine's own troubled past into a heartfelt tale of love that demonstrates real talent. Choi is definitely a writer to keep your eye on.--Margaret Prior--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: You Can't Go Home Again
Question: What is this product? | This novel was the last Thomas Wolfe finished before his untimely death at age 37. In its brilliance, we find more cause to wish he had lived longer. As with his other novels,You Can't Go Home Againis an extremely personal work, but in the character of George Webber, a writer, Wolfe sees and captures America and the world in an dramatic time in history. The time is the period just before the great stock market crash and it stretches through the Depression and into Germany during the rise of Nazis. And the writer of course is Wolfe, who takes us on a ride through America never seen before--one with sharp insight and breathtaking flair.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Black Boy (The Restored Text Established by The Library of America) (Perennial Classics)
Question: What is this product? | Autobiography by Richard Wright, published in 1945 and considered to be one of his finest works. The book is sometimes considered a fictionalized autobiography or an autobiographical novel because of its use of novelistic techniques.Black Boydescribes vividly Wright's often harsh, hardscrabble boyhood and youth in rural Mississippi and in Memphis, Tenn. When the work was first published, many white critics viewedBlack Boyprimarily as an attack on racist Southern white society. From the 1960s the work came to be understood as the story of Wright's coming of age and development as a writer whose race, though a primary component of his life, was but one of many that formed him as an artist. --The Merriam-Webster Encylopedia of Literature--This text refers to theMass Market Paperbackedition. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney
Question: What is this product? | Having in a previous book filleted intellectuals, conservative historian Johnson happily embraces the canon in search of artistic heroes. In 13 biographical sketches covering six centuries, he describes the masters of literature (Shakespeare), painting (Dürer), music (Bach) and adornment (Tiffany). His own efforts as a painter (mentioned with great modesty) add poignancy to his admiration for artists like Turner and Hokusai. Johnson emphasizes the rarity of truly visionary artists, but this is not a particularly polemical book: his enthusiasm for the creators overrides his tendency to play the gadfly. For Johnson, true genius resides not merely in native creativity but also in curiosity and industriousness. Many of his subjects were tremendously ambitious and prolific, with exceptions like Jane Austen serving to illustrate this all the more. Creation, says Johnson, is above all a vocation—but it's also a business. It's striking that several of his subjects became quite wealthy—he is particularly impressed with the riches Picasso amassed. Johnson's historical skills exceed his talents as a critic, but his approach is unfailingly generous, and his sections onHamletand Austen are genuinely revealing.(Apr. 1)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: An Outrageous Commitment: The 48 Vows of an Indestructible Marriage
Question: What is this product? | “An Outrageous Commitment lays the groundwork for a long-lasting, fulfilling marriage. A treasure.” (--John Gray, author of Men Are from Mrs, Women Are from Venus)“An Outrageous Commitment will help you transform your marriage into what it was ordained to be.” (T.D. Jakes)“An Outrageous Commitment reminds us why we take vows in the first place. . . . Imaginative and inspired.” (Dr. Laura Schlessinger) |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Stories of Paul Bowles
Question: What is this product? | As elusive as his enigmatic fiction, which is epitomized by the 1949 autobiographical bestselling novel, The Sheltering Sky, Bowles (1910-2001) arguably has been venerated as much for being the mythical forerunner of the Beat Generation as for his considerable genius, both musical and literary. A darling of iconoclastic literati both here and abroad, he first became known as a composer, writing music for stage and screen. Only after his marriage to Jane Auer (herself soon to become a cultishly popular writer under the name Jane Bowles) in 1938 did he turn seriously to fiction. The exotic settings of the 62 stories collected in this landmark volume reflect the wanderings of nomadic Paul and Jane as, during the '30s and '40s, they flitted from Europe to Mexico, the Caribbean and the U.S. before finally settling in Tangiers in 1949. Over the years, Bowles's fascination with Western man's intrinsic decadence, laid bare in clashes with exotic cultures, became the signature motif of his existential fiction ("The Hours After Noon" and "Too Far from Home"). His oblique language and abrupt endings ("At Paso Rojo") are curiously confounding, and his tales are invariably charged with subterranean currents. Frankly incestuous and homosexual, "Pages from Cold Point" is almost certain to stir anew speculation about Bowles's sexual orientation. Earthy, violent and comfortable with corruption, these deeply affecting stories are distinguished by their lyrical rhythms and meticulous regard for language. The assemblage of this impressive collection marks a literary event of the highest order. (Oct.)Forecast: This definitive volume will be a must-have for all major libraries, and should attract much review attention and feature coverage. Bowles cofounded Antaeus magazine with Daniel Halpern in 1968, and soon afterward the magazine became the Ecco Press. This collection is being published to coincide with Ecco's 30th anniversary, and publisher Halpern will be available to discuss his longtime friendship with Bowles.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Goodbye Without Leaving
Question: What is this product? | "One of this year's funniest and most charming heroines." ----Self"[Colwin's] eloquence is zany and startling at the same time...Exhilarating and very funny." ----Los Angeles Times Book Review |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Four-Gated City (Children of Violence)
Question: What is this product? | 'I read the "Children of Violence" novels and began to understand how a person could write about the problems of the world in a compelling and beautiful way. And it seemed to me that was the most important thing I could ever do.' Barbara Kingsolver 'The "Children of Violence" series gives an astounding compression of a total, coherent vision, as if Doris Lessing knew all along where it would end.' The Times--This text refers to an alternatePaperbackedition. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Your Miracle Brain: Maximize Your Brainpower, Boost Your Memory, Lift Your Mood, Improve Your IQ and Creativity, Prevent and Reverse Mental Aging
Question: What is this product? | Yes, you can change your brain, and it doesn't take surgery. Carper, the author of best sellers like Miracle Cures, explains how nutrition can do the trick.Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship
Question: What is this product? | Few architects have gained the level of professional achievement and popular notoriety of Frank Lloyd Wright, who's as famed for his bullheadedness, abuse of underlings, condescension to his clients and his numerous wives as he is for his indisputable masterpieces of American architecture. In their biography, Friedland and Zellman skim over the typical historiography and gleefully delve into Wright's secrets and scandals, focusing on the cultish atmosphere, the mystical teachings and especially, the sexual indiscretions at Taliesin, his studio-commune where he commanded a near-messianic following. There are no major revelations, but the narrative is riveting, endowing its historical characters with all the drama of contemporary tabloid celebrities. However, heavy reliance on the dusty and probably skewed memories of interviewees produces some anecdotes that sound more like exaggerated cocktail gossip than historic fact. Occasionally, the authors use awkward psychoanalysis to account for Wright's architectural practices, such as interpreting his prairie houses' lack of basements or attics as an attempt to erase the painful memories he suffered in those spaces as a child. While the book may appeal to those more curious about the man than his achievements, readers may find the focus on all the indiscretions at Taliesin underwhelming.(Sept. 1)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Fly on the Wall
Question: What is this product? | “Fascinating...breathless suspense.” (Minneapolis Tribune)“Tony Hillerman’s novels are like no others.” (San Diego Union-Tribune)“[Hillerman] is a master at his game.” (Chattanooga Times) |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Blessing Way (Joe Leaphorn Novels)
Question: What is this product? | "Brilliant . . . As fascinating as it is original." ----St. Louis Post-Dispatch |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: A Secret Affair
Question: What is this product? | The story of an illicit affair that plunges into mystery when one of the lovers fails to appear for an assignation, this new work is being published in the same small gift format as last season's Bradford best seller, Love in Another Town.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Wild Justice
Question: What is this product? | When a killing field is unearthed in the Oregon woods, it's linked to a Portland surgeon whose increasingly aggressive behavior and explosive temper have already drawn the attention of his colleagues. Neophyte attorney Amanda Jaffe takes second chair to her father, a successful criminal lawyer retained by Dr. Vincent Cardoni when he is charged with multiple counts of murder. The victims have one thing in common: they are missing vital organs, which were clearly harvested by an expert surgeon. In this explosive and fast-paced suspense thriller, the forensic evidence against Cardoni is so convincing that even after his acquittal on a technicality, the reader, like Amanda, is sure of his guilt. And when a similar field of mutilated bodies turns up years later, Cardoni is again the primary suspect. But Cardoni has disappeared, and this time it's his former wife, Justine Castle, who's implicated in the new crimes, and Amanda who's retained as the lead attorney in the case.The particulars of the killings are so similar to the first set of murders that Amanda is convinced Cardoni is involved. When he is found to be working at the same hospital where he was once a promising surgeon (this time as a custodian and under an assumed name), she draws the logical conclusion. But when she finds Cardoni's severed hand at the scene of the crimes, she is forced to rethink the assumptions on which her defense of the doctor's ex-wife is based. Could Justine, in fact, be the killer? Author Phillip Margolin's newest book moves at an almost frantic pace. Bodies pile up, evidence mounts, and everything points to Cardoni's guilt until the end, a stunner that surprises Amanda as well as the reader. This chilling, deftly crafted novel will hold the reader's attention to the last page.--Jane Adams--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Thief's Gamble (Tales of Einarinn, Book 1)
Question: What is this product? | One of the problems those not already besotted fans have with genre heroic fantasy is the real vagueness of its settings. One answer to this is to slot it somehow into real time--another, more interesting one is to provide the imagined world with a past of its own. McKenna does this less through the provision of endless chronologies and king-lists than through her character s' sense of what has been lost--her magicians, scholars and thieves are all aware of how little they know of the past and how much there is to find out. All the chasing around, sword fighting and hair-breadth escapes of the plot relate closely to the quest for knowledge, for understanding of the strange dreams that come to scholars who own ancient artefacts. Livak starts off supplementing her income from gambling with a little judicious burglary of the sort of thing she knows scholars are buying; she finds herself first blackmailed, and then more willingly recruited, into a cause which comes to be her own. And who are the mysterious blonde thugs who dog our heroes at every turn? McKenna's debut has areas of clumsiness, but real charm and excitement to overcome them. AMAZON.CO.UK A wonderful debut J.V. Jones--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Valentine Pontifex (Majipoor Cycle)
Question: What is this product? | "Silverberg has created a big planet, chock-a-block with life and potential sbacksies." ----The Washington Post |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: How to Flunk Your First Date (Two of a Kind #2)
Question: What is this product? | Mary-Kate and Ashley have been celebrities since the day when, at the age of nine months, they joined the cast of the hit sitcom "Full House" in their shared role as Michelle. Each of Mary-Kate and Ashley's 14 years since has witnessed the outstanding expansion of their popularity...their fans have literally grown up alongside the twins! First in television and feature films, Mary-Kate and Ashley now appear in videos, music, interactive software, fashion dolls and accessories, and more. Their latest ventures include launching their official website and debuting a line of licensed fashion clothing, as well as their very own magazine in spring 2001.Mary-Kate & Ashley books launched in 1990, and today the various book series continue to grow to reflect the ever-evolving lifestyles of kids, 'tweens, and teens. HarperEntertainment and Parachute Publishing release twenty-five books a year and have sold more than 30 million copies. Mary-Kate and Ashley's two book seriesTwo of a KindandThe New Adventures of Mary Kate and Ashleyare frequentUSA Todaybestsellers. And Mary-Kate & Ashley novelties, such as Wall Calendars, a Mood Diary, a Be My Valentine card-making kit, and the movie tie-in series,Starring-Incontinue to be hugely popular.The growth of the Mary-Kate & Ashley brand has afforded Parachute and Harper the opportunity to work with companies such as Acclaim Entertainment, Mattel Inc., Warner Home Video, Kid Rhino, Lightyear Entertainment, Sail with the Stars on cross-promotional and cross-merchandise projects, including a very special, book-dedicated area on mary-kateandashley.com -- Now Read This! |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Master of Desire (Avon Historical Romance)
Question: What is this product? | "Convinces us of Ms. MacGregor's talented writing. This exciting tale is filled with humor, tenderness, and passion. Totally enjoyable." --Rendezvous"Engaging characters, a colorful backdrop...romantic love story...You'll smile, sigh and enjoy yourself immensely." --Romantic Times"I love Kinley MacGregor's books! They brim with laughter and love. Master of Desire is her best yet!" --Cathy Maxwell, author of The Marriage Contract"I love Kinley MacGregor's books! They brim with laughter and love. Master of Desire is her best yet!" --Cathy Maxwell, National Best Selling Author"MASTER OF DESIRE proves once again that humor and passion are the trademarks of any Kinley MacGregor book." --Christina Dodd, author of Rules of Engagement"Master of Desire secures Kinley MacGregor's place as a master of compelling historical romance. Deliciously noble Draven is no match for the innocent, seductive Emily." --Affaire de Coeur"Warm, witty, and wonderful, Kinley MacGregor weaves a magical. . .tale." --Stephanie Laurens, author of A Secret LoveKinley MacGregor possesses a talent unparalleled. Master of Desire is destined to become an instant classic that will capture the heart of romance fans the world over. --Romance OnlineThe perfect mix of passion and pageantry, tenderness and humor. Every page was a pleasure! Kinley MacGregor just shot to the top of my "must read" list." --Teresa Medeiros, bestselling author of THE BRIDE AND THE BEAST |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Warriors Super Edition: Firestar's Quest
Question: What is this product? | Erin Hunter is inspired by a fascination with the ferocity of the natural world. As well as having great respect for nature in all its forms, Erin enjoys creating rich mythical explanations for animal behavior. She is also the author of the bestselling Warriors and Seekers series. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Needs of the Dying: A Guide for Bringing Hope, Comfort, and Love to Life's Final Chapter
Question: What is this product? | "A Remarkably compassionate,uplifting book. We encourage all patients and their family and friends to read his words and thoughts." --Ted Mann Cancer Center at UCLA"David Kessler’s work has made a significant contribution in helping us understand the needs of the dying." --American Cancer Society--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Florida Roadkill: A Novel (Serge Storms)
Question: What is this product? | This dizzying road movie of a first novel follows a passel of comic con men (and one con woman) down and around the Florida coast. Their adventures involve deliciously caricatured characters along with delirious violence, not to mention pigeon-eating maniacs, cocaine, traffic jams, biker gangs, hot-tub accidents, mock-Satanic heavy metal bands, partially frozen crocodilians, the World Series and the space shuttle. Serge and Coleman are roommates, manic ne'er-do-wells trying to fashion a living from crime and adventure. Sexy Sharon Rhodes murders magnates for their life insurance. On the run after her last hit, she meets Serge and Coleman, and the trio start a crime spree. Former millionaire George Veale has just been released from prison when he absconds with a suitcase of drug money. The cash belongs to insurance CEO Charles Saffron, who hires sleazy private investigator Mo Grenadine to get it back. (Mo is also a corrupt right-wing state legislator and a gay-baiting talk radio host.) Serge and Coleman (themselves remotely connected to drug cartels) get wind of the suitcase and scheme for the cash. Sharon wants in on the caper, too, whether or not the two men planned it that way. Dorsey's cast of dangerous oddballs chase, rob, shoot and kill their way from Tampa to the Florida Keys and the Dry Tortugas, until their raucous evasion of law catches up with them. Dorsey is a newspaperman by trade (at the Tampa Tribune), and his sentence rhythm can be crisply journalistic: "Wilbur Putzenfus was losing hair on top and working the comb-over. No tan. No tone.... Spiro Agnew without the power." Floridian readers may laugh or wince as Dorsey skewers the state's foibles and stereotypes. But he can abandon his verbal dexterity and his social observation to get a quick laugh or a quick jolt of violence: as a result, his satire seems less serious than it might be. Admirers of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiassen will note their influences here; as entertainment, this rollicking, over-the-top novel is a blast. Agent, Nat Sobel. (Aug.)Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: A Good Day
Question: What is this product? | Henkes's latest combines the thick black line of his Caldecott Medal–winningKitten's First Full Moonwith the vivid palette of his mouse books to showcase a soothing story about turning lemons into lemonade. Four animals—a sun-yellow bird, a white terrier, an orange fox and a brown squirrel—face small disappointments that threaten to ruin their moods. The bird loses a prized tail feather, the dog tangles his leash around the fence, the fox has lost sight of his mother, and a meaty acorn plummets out of squirrel's grasp. But before even a hint of gloom can settle over an otherwise sunny day, Henkes briskly reverses gears and reveals these momentary losses—of self, freedom, love and food—as gains. The skillful circularity of this simple tale is capped by a nameless barefoot girl who finds the bird's "perfect yellow feather" and jauntily tucks it behind one ear. "Mama! What a good day!" she cries, running into the house in a wide angle shot that shows each of the story's other creatures at home in her front yard. A perfectly pleasing parable for the lap-reading crowd, who will find reassurance in the way each animal conquers an obstacle and finds his or her reward. All ages.(Mar.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Witch Hunt (Ophelia & Abby Mysteries, No. 4)
Question: What is this product? | Four installments into her paranormal mystery series (afterThe Trouble with Witches), Damsgaard delivers a scattershot whodunit that's more tedious than tricky. When her friend's cousin is charged with murdering a member of a motorcycle gang, librarian and returning heroine Ophelia Jensen reluctantly agrees to use her psychic gifts to help clear the woman. It's no easy case, however: the suspect, Becca, was found in bed with the dead man, her fingerprints all over the knife that killed him. A reading of the runes persuades Ophelia that the answers lie in the victim's past, and soon she's spinning theories and digging into an old crime that may have involved other gang members. At the same time, Ophelia has more personal concerns to deal with, including her foster daughter, budding medium Tink, and her own long-ignored abilities, which she's hoping to hone with the help of her gifted grandmother, Abby. Although the psychic elements are fresh and well handled, the heroine's habit of leaping to erroneous conclusions and brushing off obvious clues may frustrate mystery fans.(June)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Tales of Chekhov (13 Volume Set)
Question: What is this product? | Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in Taganrog, Ukraine in 1860. First published in the eighteen-eighties, he was a celebrated figure in Russia by the time of his death in 1904, but he remained relatively unknown internationally until the years after World War I, when his works were translated into English. His essays, plays, poetry, and short fiction have been translated into countless languages and he is remembered today as a master of the modern short story. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Seduction's Spell
Question: What is this product? | Ignite your deepest passions . . .Belle Patricelli has been running her resort, Belle on the Bend, for a long time—longer than most people realize. With Belle's subtle guidance, six people are reawakened to their passions and given the chance to connect with their one true love—broken marriages are mended and lost souls find their match. Set against the rich, sensual landscape of Belle's sprawling estate, this novel has a little something for everyone—Belle included.--This text refers to an alternatePaperbackedition. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Under Your Spell (Witches of Mayfair, Book 1)
Question: What is this product? | Lois Greiman is the award-winning author of more than twenty novels, including romantic comedy, historical romance, and mystery. She lives in Minnesota with her family and an ever-increasing number of horses. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Gollywhopper Games
Question: What is this product? | Ladies and gentlemen!Boys and girls!Welcome to the biggest, bravest, boldest competition the world has ever seen!The Gollywhopper Games!Are you ready?Gil Goodson sure hopes he's ready. His future happiness depends on winning the Golly Toy & Game Company's ultimate competition. If Gil wins, his dad has promised the family can move out of Orchard Heights—away from all the gossip, the false friends, and bad press that have plagued the Goodsons ever since The Incident.Gil's been studying for months. He thinks he knows everything about Golly's history and merchandise. But does he know enough to answer the trivia? Solve the puzzles? Complete the stunts? Will it be more than all the other kids know? Gil's formidable opponents have their own special talents. He must be quicker and smarter than all of them.The ride of Gil's life is about to begin.Win! win! win! |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Driver
Question: What is this product? | “...this is more than a testosterone cocktail of a memoir. It’s a joy ride...” (Los Angeles Times)“…highly entertaining insider’s look at the world of high-stakes, high-octane, high-risk road rallies…. Roy writes with enthusiasm and with a novelist’s sense of pacing and character. The book is so good, so filled with color and adrenaline, that it plays out like a movie in your mind.” (Booklist (starred review)) |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Ramona Collection, Vol. 1: Beezus and Ramona / Ramona the Pest / Ramona the Brave / Ramona and Her Father [4 Book Box set]
Question: What is this product? | Beverly Cleary is one of America's most popular authors. Born in McMinnville, Oregon, she lived on a farm in Yamhill until she was six and then moved to Portland. After college, as the children's librarian in Yakima, Washington, she was challenged to find stories for non-readers. She wrote her first book,Henry Huggins, inresponse to a boy's question, "Where are the books about kids like us?"Mrs. Cleary's books have earned her many prestigious awards, including the Amercan Library Association's Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, presented in recognition of her lasting contribution to children's literature.HerDear Mr. Henshawwas awarded the 1984 John Newbery Medal, and bothRamona Quimby, Age 8andRamona and Her Fatherhave been named Newbery Honor Books. In addition, her books have won more than thirty-five statewide awards based on the votes of her young readers. Her characters, including Henry Huggins, Ellen Tebbits, Otis Spofford, and Beezus and Ramona Quimby, as well as Ribsy, Socks, and Ralph S. Mouse, have delighted children for generations. Mrs. Cleary lives in coastal California.Jaqueline Rogers has been a professional children's book illustrator for more than twenty years and has worked on nearly one hundred children's books. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Everything Forbidden (Avon Red)
Question: What is this product? | Jess Michaels always flips through every romance she buys in search of "the good stuff," so it makes perfect sense that she writes erotic romance where she gets to turn up the heat and let it boil. She also runs the popular website The Passionate Pen and writes historical romance as Jenna Petersen. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Executricks: Or How to Retire While You're Still Working
Question: What is this product? | “Bing is hilarious!” (Don Imus)“A masterful curmudgeon who causes laugh-out-loud moments.” (USA Today)“Nobody pricks corporate balloons better than Stanley Bing.” (New York Post) |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams
Question: What is this product? | Sey writes of her career in internationally competitive gymnastics, which culminated when she won the 1986 U.S. national championship at age 17. From the start Sey was an underdog, ever the second-best athlete on the team hoping to prove herself with tenacity and toughness. She endured numerous injuries—including a broken femur, which could have ended her career—as well as an eating disorder, depression, isolation and tremendous strain on her family. With each new sacrifice that her parents and brother made to support her, the stakes crept higher, inuring them all to gymnastics' inherent physical and psychological trauma. After claiming the U.S. title, Sey was shell-shocked and exhausted, suddenly robbed of her lifelong motivation. I'd always been a fighter, a come-from-behind girl. Now that I was on top, the battle would be unwinnable. The memoir's poignant glimpses at Sey's adult struggle to reckon with her past are regrettably sparse, and her prose occasionally lapses into wordiness, but overall, she has written a courageous story befitting a comeback kid—a timely release for the 2008 Olympics.(May)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: The Story of the Jack O'Lantern
Question: What is this product? | PreSchool-Grade 2 In this poorly executed story that is based on Irish folktales, greedy Jack meets a strange man whom others say is the devil. Thinking only of his hunger, he gorges himself on fine foods after agreeing to repay the debt on the day he dies. Years later, on Halloween, the devil comes to collect the money and finds the man carving a pumpkin for soup on his doorstep. With murderous intent, the devil throws a burning coal at Jack, who catches it in the freshly carved pumpkin. Surviving the attack, he is condemned to wander the Earth after death. He carries his glowing pumpkin with him on his travels, and so is named Jack of the lantern. Dorman's Photoshop painted illustrations are appropriately creepy and extremely imaginative the devil's feet alone are enough to bring on a case of the shivers. The text, however, is awkward and confusing. With so many quality Halloween picture books available, most libraries can skip this one.Heather Acerro, Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, INCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Kung Fu Panda: The Movie Storybook
Question: What is this product? | Catherine Hapka is the author of many books for children of all ages. She is too tall to ride ponies, though her mare, Gerri, still looks like one. Catherine takes riding lessons twice a week and lives on a farm with Gerri, three goats, a small flock of chickens, and too many cats. |
Answer the user's question about the product using the provided description. | Title: Nothing Is Quite Forgotten in Brooklyn: A Novel
Question: What is this product? | Mattison's latest combines a dark comedy of manners with even darker midlife family suspense. Constance Con Tepper plays the starring role in two long vignettes that take place 14 years apart. In the first vignette, Con is 45 and staying in her mother Gertrude's Brooklyn apartment to watch the cat. During this episode, Gert has a terrifying and paralyzing experience, the repercussions of which affect both her and others' lives in the intervening years and in the later vignette. Although there are almost too many threads to keep track of in Con's story, the one that is most important and most fully realized jumps back to an even earlier episode: a mid-century correspondence between Gert and her friend Marlene Silverman. This fascinating epistolary device acts as a tempting breadcrumb trail through the women's lives and leads to the wrenching denouement. Though not all the subplots work (a major one involving Con's biracial daughter, Joanna, is flat), the overarching examination of friends and family is captivating.(Sept.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
End of preview. Expand
in Data Studio
YAML Metadata Warning: empty or missing yaml metadata in repo card
Check out the documentation for more information.
Amazon Titles – Subset 200k (FIAP Tech Challenge)
Este dataset é um subset de 200.000 exemplos extraído do AmazonTitles-1.3MM, preparado para o projeto Tech Challenge – Fine-Tuning de Foundation Models (FIAP).
📖 Descrição
O dataset original contém títulos e descrições de produtos da Amazon.
Neste subset utilizamos apenas as colunas:
title→ título do produto.content→ descrição detalhada do produto.
O objetivo é treinar modelos de linguagem para responder perguntas sobre produtos, com base em seu título e descrição.
🔧 Pré-processamento
- Seleção de
titleecontentdo arquivotrn.json. - Normalização de texto (remoção de ruídos, quebras de linha).
- Criação de prompts no formato:
Instruction: O que é "<título>"? Answer: <descrição do produto>
📊 Estrutura
- train_200k → 200.000 exemplos de treino.
Exemplo de entrada:
{
"title": "Girls Ballet Tutu Neon Pink",
"content": "High quality 3 layer ballet tutu. 12 inches in length"
}
🚀 Uso
from datasets import load_dataset
# Carregar dataset
dataset = load_dataset("GustavoMaltaGuimaraesBrasil/amazon_titles_tc3", split="train_200k")
# Exemplo
print(dataset[0])
Saída:
{'title': 'Girls Ballet Tutu Neon Pink',
'content': 'High quality 3 layer ballet tutu. 12 inches in length'}
📌 Referência
- Dataset original: LF-AmazonTitles-1.3M
- Tech Challenge FIAP – Foundation Models
- Downloads last month
- 7
Size of downloaded dataset files:
205 MB
Size of the auto-converted Parquet files:
205 MB
Number of rows:
309,999