Guide to the Guardians - Rise of the Guardians (Maggie Testa)

Guide to the Guardians - Rise of the Guardians

Maggie Testa

Blurb: Get to know the Guardians in this gorgeous guide that is chock-full of information about your favourite heroes from the movie, as well as activities, quizzes, stickers, and trading cards! A perfect companion to the movie!

ISBN: 9781442452619 (Paperback)

Year: 2012

Publisher: Simon Spotlight

Pages: 32 (Fiction)

Links

1. Publisher's page

2. Buy from Amazon

3. Buy from the ABC store

4. IMDB page for the film

5. Official site for the movie

Jesus on ThyFace - Social Networking for the Modern Messiah (Denise Haskew and Steve W Parker)

Jesus on ThyFace - Social Networking for the Modern Messiah

Denise Haskew and Steve W Parker

Blurb: Some years ago, several short biographies of my life were published in an anthology of works you may or may not have come across called 'The Bible', which, without blowing my Angels' trumpets, went on to become the best-selling book of all time. Although laudable in many ways, I always felt these biographies lacked the immediacy of the actual events, as well as being somewhat light on laughs, and for some time I toyed with the idea of submitting my own version to publishers for their consideration.

Of course, there are many other people whose stories are interwoven with mine: my cousins, the Zebedees, John the Baptist, my mum (the Virgin Mary), not to mention Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor at the time. Then it struck me - we were all mad crazy on social networking back then, and everyone had a ThyFace account. So I thought what could be more immediate than reading my story as it unfolded on out ThyFace scrolls? So I contacted the guys - most of them are up here anyway, although a few of them are living in 'another place', shall we say. And I'm glad to report, they all gave their immediate blessing.

So here it is: the story of the last four years of my time on Earth as revealed on ThyFace, the forerunning of modern social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Blessed art thou. Amen

Jesus Christ

ISBN: 9780857201454 (Hardback)

Year: 2010

Publisher: Simon & Schuster 

Pages: 88 (Fiction)

Links

1. Publisher's page for the book

2. Goodreads page

3. Buy from Amazon

4. Forum post by the author

5. Buy from Waterstones

Switched - Fear Street Series #31 (R.L. Stine)

Switched - Fear Street Series #31

R.L. Stine

Blurb: Nicole always thought her friend Lucy's life was so much better than hers. She had cooler parents, a cuter boyfriend...next to her, Nicole felt like a loser. So when Lucy asked if she wanted to switch bodies, Nicole thought it sounded like a fun idea. Good for a laugh.

She didn't realise the switch would actually work. Or that Lucy's life might not be so sweet after all. Turns out, Lucy's got a few issues. And she's about to her her revenge - using Nicole's body!

ISBN: 9781416913757 (Paperback)

Year: 1992

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Pages: 150 (Fiction)

Links

1. Goodreads page for the book

2. Buy from Amazon

3. Blog on the book

4. Wikipedia page for the series

5. Buy from Barnes & Noble

The Legend of Colton H. Bryant (Alexandra Fuller)

The Legend of Colton H. Bryant

Alexandra Fuller

Blurb: When Alexandra Fuller set out to write about the oil rigs on Wyoming's high plains, she was expecting the fierce weather and the roughnecks, the big skies and the industry men, but she wasn't expecting to encounter a real-life cowboy. Then Colton H. Bryant happened into her story, a soulful boy with a mustang-taming heart and blue eyes that'll look right through you. The story of his life took over Fuller's writing and a kind of magic ensured, the result of which became this book: The Legend of Colton H. Bryant.

Along with his best friend Jake, Colton survives a sometimes cruel adolescence where neighbourhood bullies tease him for his brand of optimistic goofiness and where his mantra, 'Mind over matter, I don't mind, so it don't matter,' keeps him fighting on. Into his adulthood, Colton loves all things Wyoming; horses, hunting, pick-up trucks and camping out.

But then real life comes due. Colton grows up and finds himself a family and when, against his wife's wishes, Colton joins a crew of roughnecks on the oil rigs that reach high into the Wyoming sky, all the big heart in the world can't save him from the new, unkind greed that has possessed his beloved Wyoming during this latest mineral boom. Tragedy seems inevitable.

The bittersweet story of Colton H. Bryant could not be told without the telling of the land that grew him, where the great high plains meet the Rocky Mountains, to create a vista of lonely beauty. It is here that lives of unembellished stoicism are lived, where friendships last forever and where the existence of one boy has become a true story as deeply moving as the life that inspired it.

ISBN: 9781847373540 (Paperback)

Year: 2008

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Pages: 207 (Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Amazon

2. Review of the book

3. NY Times Review

4. Telegraph newspaper article on the book

5. Publisher's page for the book

The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 (Bob Woodward)

The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008

Bob Woodward

Blurb: As violence in Iraq reaches unnerving levels in 2006, a second front in the war rages at the highest levels of the Bush administration. In his fourth book on President George W. Bush, Bob Woodward takes readers deep inside the tensions, secret debates, unofficial backchannels, distrust and determination within the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq. With unparalleled intimacy and detail, this gripping account of a president at war describes a period of distress and uncertainty within the U.S. government from 2006 through mid-2008.

The White House launches a secret strategy review that excludes the military. General George Casey, the commander in Iraq, believes that President Bush does not understand the war and eventually concludes he has lost the president's confidence. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also conduct a secret strategy review that goes nowhere. On the verge of revolt, they worry that the military will be blamed for a failure in Iraq.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice strongly opposes a surge of additional U.S. forces and confronts the president, who replies that her suggestions would lead to failure. The president keeps his decision to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld from Vice President Dick Cheney until two days before he announces it. A retired Army general uses his high-level contacts to shape decisions about the war, as Bush and Cheney use him to deliver sensitive messages outside the chain of command.

For months, the administration's strategy reviews continue in secret, with no deadline and no hurry, in part because public disclosure would harm Republicans in the November 2006 elections. National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley tells Rice, 'We've got to do it under the radar and screen because the electoral season is so hot.'

The War Within provides an exhaustive account of struggles of General David Petraeus, who takes over in Iraq during one of the bleakest and most violent periods of the war. It reveals how breakthroughs in military operations and surveillance account for much of the progress as violence in Iraq plummets in the middle of 2007.

Woodward interviewed key players, obtained dozens of never-before-published documents, and had nearly three hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush. The result is stunning, firsthand history of the years from mid-2006, when the White House realises the Iraq strategy is not working, through the decision to surge another 30,000 U.S. troops in 2007, and into mid-2008, when the war becomes a fault line in the presidential election.

The War Within addresses head-on questions of leadership, not just in a war but in how we are governed and the dangers of unwarranted secrecy.

ISBN: 9781921470103 (Hardback)

Year: 2008

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Pages: 487 (Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Amazon

2. Foreign Affairs look at the book

3. The Washington Post's in depth look at the book

4. Article on the book

5. Good reads page for the book

The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism (Ron Suskind)

The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism

Ron Suskind

Blurb: From Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Ron Suskind comes a startling look at how America and the West lost their way and at our governments' struggle, day by day, to reclaim the moral authority upon which their survival depends.

In a sweeping, propulsive, and multilayered narrative, The Way of the World investigates how the West relinquished the moral leadership it now desperately needs to fight the real threat of our era: a nuclear weapon in the hands of terrorists. Suskind shows where the most neglected dangers lie in the story of 'The Armageddon Test' - a desperate gamble to send undercover teams into the world's nuclear black market to frustrate the efforts of terrorists trying to procure weapons-grade uranium. In the end, he finally reveals for the first time the explosive falsehood underlying the Iraq War and the Blair-Bush coalition.

The Way of the World simultaneously follows an ensemble of characters around the world who are turning fear and frustration into a desperate - and often daring - brand of human salvation. They include a striving, 24-year-old Pakistani emigre, a fearless UN refugee commissioner, an Afghan teenager, a Holocaust survivor's son, and Benazir Bhutto, who discovers, days before her death, how she's been abandoned by the United States at her moment of greatest need. They are all testing Western values at a time of peril, and discovering solutions - human solutions - to so much that has gone wrong.

ISBN: 9781847374486 (Paperback)

Year: 2008

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Pages: 415 (Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Amazon

2. Wikipedia page for the book

3. Google books page

4. Author's official page

5. Review of the book