2014 Dads and Grads Gift Guide—Books

Taste This

How about a cookbook that promotes good flavors and easy cooking for weeknights or entertaining? Perfect for dads or grads! It’s the perfect cooking guide for men or those who want to learn easy cooking techniques – each recipe has an accompanying photo so there is no guesswork on what the finished product will look like. There are two books available at www.bowllicker.com:

– Taste This

– Taste This The Delicious Sequel!

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Screen Shot 2014-06-11 at 7.39.44 PMRAIL U.S.A. Maps from Bella Terra 

Bella Terra’s new RAIL U.S.A. maps are the ultimate guide for train enthusiasts! These beautiful, informative Unites States travel maps offer as much information as guidebooks and feature original watercolor illustrations.

RAIL U.S.A. – MUSEUMS & TRIPS offers 1,200 rail attractions across the entire country—the most comprehensive and up-to-date listing anywhere. Locations are shown on detailed maps, which make for easy travel planning. The text includes descriptions, physical locations, contact info and symbols for 8 categories of attractions. Please visit: http://bellaterramaps.com/index.html

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The Tech Entrepreneur’s Survival Guide: How to Bootstrap Your Startup, Lead Through Tough Times, and Cash in For Success (McGraw-Hill, May 30 2014) by Bernd Schoner

Cap and gown–ordered, adrenaline–rushing, ‘real world’ here you go! One problem—no job offer. Having just graduated from the MIT Media Lab, Schoner and a group of classmates set up shop in a friend’s garage. They engineered and sold RFID technologies under the company name of ThingMagic. A forerunner in ‘the internet of things’, Schoner’s company survived ten solid years before ultimately being sold to Trimble Navigation, a multi-billion dollar, multi-national tech company, where Schoner currently works as the VP of Business Development. In The Tech Entrepreneuer’s Survival Guide, Schoner explains the major phases in a company’s life cycle, enlightening young entrepreneurs on the common pitfalls and crises he dealt with, and how to succeed in spite of them. It guides the reader from the initial bootstrapping process through venture-capital financing and provides valuable advice on how to sell a technology company profitably—even in a bad economic environment.

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The Kafka Society  by Ron Felber
Publisher:  Barricade Books
Publication Date:  June 2014
Price:  $16.95/ trade paperback original
ISBN:  978-1569805107

When last seen in the final chapter of A Man of Indeterminate Value, Jack Madson – who had spent three hundred heart-pumping pages faking his own death, tangling with Chinese criminal syndicates, and engaging with a host of dangerous characters – was about to begin a new life in Oregon.  Now, in the THE KAFKA SOCIETY, the second book in Ron Felber’s thriller trilogy, Madson is living in Washington, DC, trying to establish himself as a private detective.

But immediately, Felber plunges his protagonist into a new adventure peopled with a colorful and often unsavory cast of Hell’s Angels, porn stars, Homeland Security agents, the FBI, and more. 

When the novel opens, Madson awakens in bed with no memory of the prior twenty-four hours. He then makes another discovery – this one more chilling. His car is drenched in blood, and in the trunk he finds something truly grisly – a decapitated head. Without a minute to think, he is thrust into the center of a murder investigation.  Adding to the mystery is the presence at his interrogation of Special Agent Woods of Homeland Security.

Why would Homeland Security be interested in a murder on the streets of Washington?

Patrick Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of Lone Survivor and The Delta Solution, called Ron Felber’s first Jack Madson novel “a tautly plotted thriller,” declaring, “Gritty, fast-paced, and dynamic, the blend of dialogue, atmosphere, and action will grip readers from page one.”  With this same trademark style, THE KAFKA SOCIETY transports readers to places most would never visit, from the devout Catholic organization Opus Dei to a terrifying web of global human trafficking, and from the bizarre world beneath the streets of New York to the rough and tough clubs of Hell’s Angels.  

With this latest installment in the Jack Madson trilogy, Felber’s fast-paced storytelling and cutting observations once again engage and mystify, leading to questions about what we really know about the highest levels of police power and the darkest activities of the underworld.

Visit www.ronfelber.com.

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idiotsmediterraneanIdiot’s Guides: The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook

The Mediterranean diet is considered one of the healthiest diets in the world, and has been proven to be acceptable for people with serious health issues such as diabetes and heart diseases, as well as those looking to adopt a healthier lifestyle.

Perfect for the mom who loves to cook and packed with over 200 delicious recipes featuring fruits, vegetables, whole grains, flavorful herbs and spices, and other ingredients key to the Mediterranean diet, author Denise Hazime, creator of DedeMed.com, helps readers indulge in a healthy, balanced, and flavorful approach to eating. The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook retails for $18.95 and is available on Amazon.com.

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OUT OF THE DEPTHS:  An Unforgettable WWII Story of Survival, Courage, and the Sinking of the USS Indianapolis (Bethany House Publishers; May 1, 2014) by Edgar Harrell, survivor of the USS Indianapolis

Soon enough all we will have left of the lost generation is firsthand accounts and photographs. On July 30 1945, the USS Indianapolis was struck by two Japanese torpedoes, and the death toll from the sinking of the USS Indianapolis was enormous. To this day, only 38 survivors are left to tell their story–Edgar Harrell is one of the living survivors of the USS Indianapolis, and he shares his daunting story of survival and beating the odds in OUT OF THE DEPTHS.

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Your Marketing Sucks’ 10th Anniversary Edition

According to marketing expert, CEO of MSCO and bestselling author of “Your Marketing Sucks,” Mark Stevens has this to say…

The day that a Grad transitions from campus to corporation is either a) a slow road to a dead-end career or b) a fast track to a meteoric rise up the ladder. What makes the difference? Certainly not the reputation of the school or their rank in the graduating class. It’s whether they’re armed or not with real world knowledge of how to manage a career. Virtually everything they learned in college and will learn from the HR bureaucrats who orient them once they arrive on the job is useless pabulum. The winners learn to reject the oxymoron of conventional wisdom such as the need to be a consensus builder and a team player in favor of a daring innovator who brings new ideas to the surface and fights for them. Anything less than that is management that sucks and that’s why they need to read this book. Image consultant, marketing and management expert, Mark Stevens, CEO of MSCO (a full-service marketing firm) and author of “Your Marketing Sucks,” tells it like it is!

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Audiobooks.com

Audiobooks.com provides the first on-demand streaming and downloadable service for audiobooks, delivering access on any Internet-enabled smartphone or PC, including Apple iPhones and iPads and Android smartphones or tablet devices. The company is the first and only provider of Cloud Bookmarking, its proprietary technology that synchronizes users’ last listened-to bookmark position across all devices. Find out more at www.Audiobooks.com.

To better support both streaming and downloading on the go, Audiobooks.com just announced the release of updated versions of the company’s free iOS and Android apps. Featuring an intuitive new user interface, the newly released apps are available at Apple’s App Store for iPhones, iPod Touch and iPads or at Google Play for Android devices. Members can use the apps to stream content on demand, choosing from tens of thousands of audio book titles like The Hunger Games trilogy and the Twilight series as well as popular best-sellers such as Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman and Hidden Order, a thriller by Brad Thor.

The new versions of the Audiobooks.com apps are available now for free at the Apple App Store or Google Play, providing an improved user experience for members to stream audiobooks on demand or download content. To learn more, please visit www.Audiobooks.com

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Smart Money Smart Kids

Smart Money Smart Kids is a new book by Rachel Cruze and her father Dave Ramsey. This awesome book is written from both a parent and adult child’s perspective on teaching kids about how to handle money now so they don’t make mistakes with it as an adult. It covers everything from saving, spending and giving to how to teach contentment in the instant gratification world that we live in.

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The Balance Myth: Rethinking Work/Life Success by Teresa Taylor

The Balance Myth: Rethinking Work/Life Success just received a 2014 Axiom Business Book Award in the Career (Job Search, Career Advancement) category.  These awards are intended to bring increased recognition to exemplary business books and their creators, with the understanding that business people are an information-hungry segment of the population, eager to learn about great new books that will inspire them and help them improve their careers and businesses.

Among other things, the book tells readers to give 100 percent of you to what you are doing and always be present.  Your family, friends and colleagues will thank you.   Taylor did this and she went on to become one of Fortune Magazine’s top female earners a few years ago and COO at Qwest, a $12 billion telecommunications and media company, where she held numerous executive positions spanning a successful 23-year tenure. 

Amazon Link ($15)  – http://www.amazon.com/Balance-Myth-Rethinking-Work-Life-Success-ebook/dp/B00C4YU244/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396295458&sr=8-1&keywords=Teresa+Taylor

Please also check out these other wonderful book titles:

The Summer Train – by Susan Rabin 

Modern June – by Kelly McCants 

Loving Yourself – by Dr. Sherrie Campbell 

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Screen Shot 2014-05-07 at 5.50.09 PMTHE ESSENTIALS OF BUSINESS ETIQUETTE: How to Greet, Eat, and Tweet Your Way to Success (McGraw-Hill Professional; August, 2013; PB & e-book, $16.00)

The way you dress for your interview; how you greet your potential boss for the first time; your panache at handling an interruption during a business meeting; even the way you pose a question has the potential to cast a golden glow on you, or a bad light. 

There are many opportunities to make an impression – the trick to making an impression is understanding the nuances of how you’ll be perceived by your behavior. Presenting your best self is the surest way of succeeding in business and in life.   THE ESSENTIALS OF BUSINESS ETIQUETTE: How to Greet, Eat, and Tweet Your Way to Success (McGraw-Hill Professional; August, 2013; PB & e-book, $16.00) is a handbook for the 21st century, written by an etiquette expert who understands the social cues in the business space whether face-to-face or via social communication.  

With 101 short chapters, it’s designed to give you a primer on the workplace (and that grey area when you carry your office around on your mobile device), and the behaviors that can move you to the next level. From grooming to greetings, from Skyping to speaking to texting, and everything you need to know about making a superlative first impression, this is the must-have graduation gift for the Class of 2014.

About the Author: Barbara Pachter (Cherry Hill, NJ) is president of Pachter & Associates, is an internationally renowned business etiquette and communications speaker, coach, and author. A frequent etiquette resource for outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and O the Oprah Magazine, she has delivered more than 2,100 seminars throughout the world including the first-ever seminar for businesswomen in Kuwait.  Read more about her at pachter.com

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Screen Shot 2014-05-07 at 5.51.01 PMINNOVATION THE NASA WAY: Harnessing the Power of Your Organization for Breakthrough Success (April, 2014; HC, $35.00)

This book examines the thinking, collaborative efforts, and innovations that have resulted in breakthrough moments not just for the agency but “for all mankind.”  Pasadena resident Rod Pyle has written several books on the space race and moon missions; he looks at the business processes behind each milestone in NASA history, from Apollo 11 to Pathfinder, from The Mercury Program and Voyager to The Space Shuttle and beyond.  The federal agency has time and again crafted the possible out of the impossible, adhering to demanding time constraints and budgets, meeting new levels of exacting standards, preserving the lives of astronauts, and challenging the very notions of galactic boundaries. 

The book culminates with a look at present-day projects including The International Space Station and Rover, and ponders NASA’s next great adventure.

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How to Get Laid before the Main Course: A Gentleman’s Approach to the Big Date

Did you ever wish you could just “get it” when it comes to dating? Whether it’s the inability to open and hold a conversation, unsure of how to act, or lack of knowledge on how to close and seal the deal, men (and women) can be clueless. Enter: ViMal’s, How to Get Laid before the Main Course: A Gentleman’s Approach to the Big Date, a guidebook to cooking your way into the magical place between the sheets. This must-have life saver for the romantically challenged describes how to flawlessly wine and dine your date, which is guaranteed to turn you from “rookie” to “rock star” in a matter of minutes. In a funny, yet sophisticated voice, ViMal gives you the tips, tools and techniques proven to succeed in and out of the kitchen- even with women out of your league.

How to Get Laid before the Main Course gives its readers over 30 years of experience from around the globe of how to successfully engage with beautiful women of different cultures and ethnicities. You don’t need money, looks or luxuries. Instead, the author gives you the keys to having an enchanted evening; including dating tips for dummies and romantic recipe secrets that will induce a little “fork-play.” You’re guaranteed to learn the ins and outs of kitchen know-how, from ingredient selection and preparation, to basic knowledge of cheeses, wines and beers.

How to Get Laid before the Main Course: A Gentleman’s Approach to the Big Date is available for purchase on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. 

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The History of Farting: A Compilation of Flatulent Prose

I do it.  You do it.  The President does it and so does his wife.  The finest of professors and the most beautiful of women – they do it too.  Some like to share them with others and some like to keep them private.  Many are loud while others are often soft, though neither are generally pleasant to anyone but the blaster themself.  Some are greeted by laughs and some are taken with great offense.  Farts!!

In THE HISTORY OF FARTING (Shelter Harbor Press, March 2014), author Dr. Benjamin Bart offers readers humorous definitions, boisterous limericks and actual definitions drawn from the collection of the (not very) famous Bart archives, a treasure trove of papers from author Bart’s grandmother Emily’s cedar chest. Broken into six chapters – Introducing the Fart; The Song of the Fart; Le Petomane; The Farta from Sparta; The Physiology of Farting; and The A-Z of Farting, the book offers readers a cornucopia of information that any fart-fan must have! The History of Farting covers breaking wind in culture through the ages.  What more could you ask for?

To learn more about this fascinating project, please contact David Ratner at David@Ratnerpr.com / 617-320-0556

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