Review of The 15-Minute Organizer (Paperback)

This is a book that I have referred to over and over again to get myself organized and stay organized.Emile Barnes uses a no nonsense approach to get you organized.Her common sense system of using a timer and giving yourself 15 minutes to stay focused on your area of attack is great.I am a working mom with two toddlers.I read this book originally when I got married 7 years ago.I read it at least once a year to reinspire myself and as a constant reference to stay motivated with a busy schedule to get organized.

Product Description

Bestselling author and time-management expert Emilie Barnes giveswomen the basic strategies they need to survive in today's busy world.Realistic and practical, each chapter offers proven methods for taking thestress out of meal planning, housekeeping, finances, holiday shopping, andmore. In just 15 minutes a day, readers will discover how to—

• whip their entire house into shape
• create a personalized daily planner
• double their closet space
• organize a fail-safe filing system

Now with an updated cover, the 15-Minute Organizer (over 220,000 copies sold) contains more than75 time-saving strategies on topics that include goal setting, involving childrenin chores, grocery shopping, and record-keeping. Women will discover they canget ahead and stay ahead.

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Review of Comprehension and Collaboration: Inquiry Circles in Action (Paperback)

I knew both authors from their previous works, so I was confident I would like the book. The book is written in a conversational manner, but includes research to back up the information they present. Having taught using the Primary Years Programme, which emphasizes the inquiry approach they advocate I was a bit surprised that they did not reference this framework, but maybe they are not aware of the similarity. I would recommend this book for any teacher of students from K-12, the age or subject area is not important. It is important that teachers get a look inside classrooms where this kind of learning is going on and the scenarios presented in the book are this glimpse into real classrooms. I will recommend this book to the professional book club at my school, as it is the rare book that all teachers can appreciate.

Product Description

"This book is about small-group projects that work. It's about combining what we know about the research process, about thinking, and about people working together to create a structure that consistently supports kids to build knowledge that matters in their lives."

- Stephanie Harvey and Harvey "Smokey" Daniels

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Review of Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream (Hardcover)

I have three children ages 12, 17 and 20.I received this book for Christmas and am fascinated by it and will get copies formy children as well as for some of their friends. A person can choose to be nickle and dimed, or can choose to create a plan and stick to it.Scratch Beginnings is not the Idiot's Guide for Getting out of Homelessness, but it is proof that anybody with determination can do it.

Our church is in downtown Charlotte, NC and we do a lot of work with the homeless. During the winter, we host Room at the Inn twice weekly to handle the overflow from the Men's Shelter. I have spent several nights at church with the homeless group and have always been amazed the majority of the them have full time jobs. They just can't accumulate the nut to get the apartment deposit, utility hookups, etc. The others seem to fall into the groupsdescribed at the Charleston shelter: the addicted and the crazies.

There are no easy answers when it comes to homelessness.I have seen some great success stories and some horrible failures including a dead man on a doorstep. I want my children to read your book for two reasons: 1) to know thatthey have no excuses for not making it in this life asthey have had every advantage and a safety net the size of the oceans, and 2) they need to understand the roots of homelessness and what it takes to rise above it.The closest thing I have read to this book is "Finding Fish," which is more a story of redemption and the importance of family.

I help teach the AP econ class at a local high school and am going to talk to the teachers about getting the book added to the curriculum.Many of these kids have no clue when it comes to budgeting, goal setting and delayed gratification.Scratch Beginnings is an important lesson. It should be required reading for every high school student.

Oh, and as far as the "questionable language of the streets" goes, my 12 year old daughter hears worse on the school bus each day. While possibly offensive, it is realistic.


Product Description

Adam Shepard graduated from college in the summer of 2006 feeling disillusioned by the apathy he saw around him and incensed after reading Barbara Ehrenreich's famous works Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch-books that gave him a feeling of hopelessness over the state of the working class in America. Eager to see if he could make something out of nothing, he set out to prove wrong Ehrenreich's theory that those who start at the bottom stay at the bottom, and to see if the American Dream can still be a reality.

Shepard's plan was simple. Carrying only a sleeping bag, the clothes on his back, and $25 in cash, and restricted from using previous contacts or relying on his college education, he set out for a randomly selected city with one objective: work his way out of homelessness and into a life that would give him the opportunity for success. His goal was to have, after one year, $2,500, a working automobile, and a furnished apartment.

But from the start, things didn't go as smoothly as Shepard had planned. Working his way up from a Charleston, South Carolina homeless shelter proved to be more difficult than he anticipated, with pressure to take low-paying, exploitive jobs from labor companies, and a job market that didn't respond with enthusiasm to homeless applicants. Shepard even began donating plasma to make fast cash. To his surprise, he found himself depending most on fellow shelter residents for inspiration and advice.

Earnest, passionate, and hard to put down, Scratch Beginnings is a story that will not only inspire readers, but will also remind them that success can come to anyone who is willing to work hard-and that America is still one of the most hopeful and inspiring countries in the world.

About the Author

Adam Shepard is a 2006 graduate of Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts, where he majored in Business Management and Spanish. Serving as a Resident Advisor during his upperclassmen years, he began to take particular interest in social issues. Scratch Beginnings is Shepard's first book. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his mom.

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Review of Our Social World: Introduction to Sociology (Paperback)

Even though there were a couple of pencil marks and text was highlighted, it was a great book. Book came in on time, within a week, and overall book is wonderful.

Product Description
The most innovative introduction to Sociology in a generation presents a coherent essay that inspires students to develop their sociological imaginations: to see the world and personal events from a new perspective, and to confront sociological issues on a day-to-day basis. This engaging text introduces the discipline of sociology to the contemporary student and provides an integrated, comprehensible framework from which to view the world. In each chapter, authors Jeanne H. Ballantine and Keith A. Roberts provide an organizing theme that is not exclusively tied to one theoretical paradigm to help students see relationships between topics. Our Social World presents the perspective of students living in the larger global world.



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Review of Home is Where the Boat Is (Paperback)

How many people sail because they love to sail. And then again, how many sail only because they love a person who loves to sail. This is Emy Thomas' story. How she overcame the fear, and the deprivation to be with the man she loved. She sailed with him in the Caribbean and Pacific for thirteen years and came to love sailing too.
Many sailing books are maintenance and navigation encyclopedias. Others are cruising logs - the chronology and itinerary of the voyage. Emy's book is neither of these. Her book answers the very simple question - "what was it like?" It is arranged by topic to addresstypical concerns and inquiries - do you get seasick, how does the laundry get done, what about storms and hurricanes, and theft, how do you keep all those nautical terms straight, how do you keep in touch with folks at home, how hard is the work, what sort of people do you meet, what do you do with your garbage?
Emy had lived more comfortably before. She and her sailing mate scraped by for thirteen years, stopping to pick up casual jobs when the money got low. But you get the feeling she would have had it no other way. They were accepted in many of the poorer islands they visited and had a richer experience as a result, not because they had a fancy yacht bristling with electronics, but because they didn't.
This book is an easy read and highly entertaining for anyone who likes sailing or has fantasized about cruising the oceans. If someone you love is trying to drag you off to sea you will want to read this book. Then, you'll probably say "okay, let's do it".

Product Description
Home Is Where the Boat Is is and entertaining and informative report on the lifestyle of adventures who cruise the oceans in small sailboats. Written for sailors and laymen alike and for anyone who has ever dreamed of sailing off into the sunset, it is a lively and honest account of the pros and cons of cruising. Chapters include getting food and water, doing laundry, making a living, meeting the natives, surviving storms and sickness. The book is also a love story about the author, a journalist, and the typical "yachtie" with whom she spent 13 years sailing halfway around the world, visiting scores of tropical paradise.

About the Author
Emy Thomas grew up in Connecticut, attended excellent schools and was a journalist in New York City when she discovered the tropics. She moved to the Caribbean, fell in love with a man who was sailing around the world and embarked on along, idyllic cruise. For 13 years they sailed the Caribbean and Pacific, and home was where the boat was. The author now lives and writes in St. Croixin the U.S. Virgin Islands. Home Is Where the Boat Is was her first book.-She is also the author of Life in the Left Lane, about what it's like for expatriates to live in paradise.

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Review of Home Fires Burning: Married to the Military-for Better or Worse (Paperback)

Home Fires Burning really does look at military family life for better or for worse.Ms. Houppert does not sugarcoat the life of the military spouse like so many other books do, nor does she claim that military wives have made their own bed by choosing to marry someone in the military and therefore deserve to be unhappy.Given that such a small proportion of the population is being asked to carry the entire burden of the current conflicts-a book like this is important for civilians (particularly civilian defense leadership) to read so that they might understand the impact of the demands that conflict has on the society and way of life they claim to be protecting.I'm glad to see that Ms. Houppert is mature enough to say critical things about the military in a way that does not demean or patronize servicemembers or their families.We need more than parades, yellow ribbon magnets, and other trite penitance dished out by a complacent and disinterested civilian public.Military families need decent housing, good schools, and most importantly, the safe and speedy return of their loved ones.
On a personal level, this is the first book I've found that acknowledges the emotions and trials of women undergoing the strains of deployment.Other books, such as the oft-reccomended "Surviving Deployment" prattle on for paragraphs about keeping a log of your daily activities (as if any woman with a husband out of the country has the time) but offer only a parched sentance that vaguely addresses the nagging fear, lonliness, and frustration- feelings which the Army culture teaches us to keep to ourselves at great cost to our marriage and our own sanity.This book was a great catharsis.



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