1,000 PLACES TO SEE IN THE U.S.A. AND CANADA BEFORE YOU DIE, by Patricia Schultz

It's the phenomenon: 1,000 Places to See Before You Die has 2.2 million copies in print and has spent 144 weeks and counting on The New York Times bestseller list.Now, shipping in time for the tens of millions of travelers heading out for summer trips, comes 1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die. Sail the Maine Windjammers out of Camden. Explore the gold-mining trails in Alaska's Denali wilderness. Collect exotic shells on the beaches of Captiva. Take a barbecue tour of Kansas City—from Arthur Bryant's to Gates to B.B.'s Lawnside to Danny Edward's to LC's to Snead's. There's the ice hotel in Quebec, the Great Stalacpipe Organ in Virginia, cowboy poetry readings, what to do in Lexington after the Derby's over, and for every city, dozens of unexpected suggestions and essential destinations.The book is organized by region, and subject-specific indices in the back sort the book by interest—wilderness, great dining, best beaches, world-class museums, sports and adventures, road trips, and more. There's also an index that breaks out the best destinations for families with children. Following each entry is the nuts and bolts: addresses, websites, phone numbers, costs, best times to visit.
Elizabeth Connor - Library Journal

90 MINUTES IN HEAVEN, by Don Piper with Cecil Murphey

More than 1 million copies sold!On the way home from a conference, Don Piper's car was crushed by a semi-truck that crossed into his lane. Medical personnel said he died instantly. While his body lay lifeless inside the ruins of his car, Piper experienced the glories of heaven, awed by its beauty and music. 90 minutes after the wreck, while a minister prayed for him, Piper miraculously returned to life on earth with only the memory of inexpressible heavenly bliss. His faith in God was severely tested as he faced an uncertain and grueling recovery. Now he'd like to share his life-changing story with you. 90 Minutes in Heaven offers a glimpse into a very real dimension of God's reality. This New York Times bestseller encourages those recovering from serious injuries and those dealing with the loss of a loved one. The experience dramatically changed Piper's life, and it will change yours too.

BROTHER ODD, by Dean Koontz

Loop me in, odd one. The words, spoken in the deep of night by a sleeping child, chill the young man watching over her. For this was a favorite phrase of Stormy Llewellyn, his lost love, and Stormy is dead, gone forever from this world. In the haunted halls of the isolated monastery where he had sought peace, Odd Thomas is stalking spirits of an infinitely darker natureThrough two New York Times bestselling novels Odd Thomas has established himself as one of the most beloved and unique fictional heroes of our time. Now, wielding all the power and magic of a master storyteller at the pinnacle of his craft, Dean Koontz follows Odd into a singular new world where he hopes to make a fresh beginning—but where he will meet an adversary as old and inexorable as time itself. St. Bartholomew’s Abbey sits in majestic solitude amid the wild peaks of California’s high Sierra, a haven for children otherwise abandoned, and a sanctuary for those seeking insight. Odd Thomas has come here to learn to live fully again, and among the eccentric monks, their other guests, and the nuns and young students of the attached convent school, he has begun to find his way. The silent spirits of the dead who visited him in his earlier life are mercifully absent, save for the bell-ringing Brother Constantine and Odd’s steady companion, the King of Rock 'n' Roll.But trouble has a way of finding Odd Thomas, and it slinks back onto his path in the form of the sinister bodachs he has met previously, the black shades who herald death and disaster, and who come late one December night to hover above the abbey’s most precious charges. For Odd is about to face an enemy who eclipses any he has yet encountered, as he embarks on a journey of mystery, wonder, and sheer suspense that surpasses all that has come before.

HALO: CONTACT HARVEST, by Joseph Staten

This is how it began...

It is the year 2524. Harvest is a peaceful, prosperous farming colony on the very edge of human-controlled space. But we have trespassed on holy ground--strayed into the path of an aggressive alien empire known as the Covenant. What begins as a chance encounter between an alien privateer and a human freighter catapults mankind into a struggle for its very existence.

But humanity is also locked in a bitter civil war known as the Insurrection. So the survival of Harvest's citizens falls to a squad of battle-weary UNSC Marines and their inexperienced colonial militia trainees. In this unlikely group of heroes, one stands above the rest...a young Marine staff sergeant named Avery Johnson.

Joseph Staten started with BUNGIE STUDIOS in 1998, and has since served as a writer and designer for ONI (2001) as well as writer and cinematics director for HALO (2001) and HALO 2 (2004). Currently writing HALO 3, Joseph is also working with Peter Jackson's newly formed game development studio, WINGNUT INTERACTIVE, writing and designing an as-of-yet unannounced game set in the Halo universe.

ON THE NIGHT YOU WERE BORN, written and illustrated by Nancy Tillman

The birth of a baby-"the one and only ever you"-causes jubilation throughout creation in this quietly celebratory picture book from newcomer Tillman. Polar bears dance, giraffes weave to the sound of brass horns, and "the moon smiled with such wonder/ that the stars peeked in to see you/ and the night wind whispered,/ `Life will never be the same.' " Tillman successfully sidesteps the soft-focus sappiness that can accompany this genre. Her writing has the authenticity of whispered conversation; occasionally, she pauses in her exaltations of the baby to address the subject directly: "I think I'll count to three so you can wiggle your toes for me." Her strong, assured paintings truly set this book apart. The pictures subtly radiate golden glints of moonlight, and her almost sculptural rendering style gives her characters a hefty physicality that counterbalances the ethereal sentiments being expressed. Although one suspects that grown-ups will be most taken with the topic and treatment, this is one of those rare baby books that should make both skeptics and sentimentalists of all ages happy. All ages. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

BECOME A BETTER YOU, by Joel Osteen

There are few things I love to eat more than bread. I just love a good loaf of white bread. I eat it the way many people eat junk food (and, I suppose, one could argue that it is junk food). Not too long ago we bought a bread maker from a person nearby who was selling all his possessions to move back to his native Poland, having found that North American living was not to his liking. The machine worked well for five loaves but on the sixth, while the bread was being kneaded, I heard a strange grinding sound followed by a sharp crack. I opened the machine and saw that the paddle, the piece that beats against the dough, had broken. I removed the lump of dough and decided I could simply put it in a bread pan and bake it on my own. A few minutes later I pulled the loaf from the oven. It looked just perfect—golden brown on top and shaped a whole lot better than the loaves that come out of the bread maker. I eagerly cut into it, looking forward to enjoying a slice of bread. But, to my surprise, I cut into, well, nothing, really. Apparently the dough had not been properly kneaded. The loaf of bread was full of air; it was full of nothing. I had baked a crust.
As I thought about Joel Osteen’s new book, Become a Better You, I was reminded of that sad, pathetic little loaf of bread because this book, like that bread, is form without substance. This is Osteen’s second book, and the follow-up to his bestselling Your Best Life Now. Like the previous title, this one features a picture of the smiling pastor on the front cover and offers seven steps to a better life. Like Your Best Life Now much of the book follows this format: “The way to ______ is not to ______. Instead, you need to ______. You might say, ‘But Joel, I can’t do ______ and ______.’ I know it’s hard. Rise to the challenge. Don’t let yourself get beat up or knocked down. God has so much more for you.” And like his previous book, this one is maddeningly repetitive. It is a handful of his sermonettes for Christianettes expanded into 380 pages of mind-numbing repetition.
The book is divided into seven parts, which together are sure to improve your life every day. “What does it mean to become a better you? First, you must understand that God wants you to become all that He created you to be. Second, it is imperative that you realize that God will do His part, but you must do your part as well.” To become a better you, you must following the seven steps:
Keep pressing forward
Be positive toward yourself
Develop better relationships
Form better habits
Embrace the place where you are
Develop your inner life
Stay passionate about life
Each step is broken into several chapters and each part ends with a series of Action Points intended to give the reader concrete steps to tak to improve his life. It is, frankly, a lot like every other self-help book on the market today, but with one crucial difference—this one is built, supposedly, upon the Bible.
As I closed the cover on this book I began to wonder, What is it that draws people to Joel Osteen? Why do people enjoy his teaching so much? After all, tens of thousands of people attend his church each week and hundreds of thousands more watch him on television. He has become one of America’s most popular pastors, even while he teaches things that most pastors would testify are inconsistent with the Bible.
I think the secret to Osteen’s success is this: he teaches self-help but wraps it in a thin guise of Christian terminology. Thus people believe they are being taught the Bible when the reality is that they are learning mere human wisdom rather than divine wisdom. Osteen cunningly blends the wisdom of this age with language that sounds biblical. He blends the most popular aspects of New Age and self-help teaching with Christianity. And his audience is eagerly drinking this in.
And this raises an important and related question. What is Osteen’s authority? On what authority does he base what he teaches? Christians have long understood that the only authority we have when it comes to spiritual matters is authority given to us by God through the Bible. We are committed to teaching only things that are consistent with God’s revelation of Himself in the Bible. Without the Bible we have no authority. A pastor has no right to stand in front of a congregation and teach people what he believes. Rather, the pastor is to stand in front of the congregation and teaches people what God says about Himself. He bases all he does and says on this standard. In reading Joel Osteen we do not see this manner of authority. In reading Osteen we see a man who appeals to himself and to his own understanding and experience as authority. Rarely does he appeal to the Bible (66 times in 380 pages). Never will the discerning reader feel that Osteen has sought to understand the Bible first. Rather, it seems that he looks to the Bible to prove what he has already written or what he already believes. He uses the Bible, but not as a source of authority.
This is not to say that Osteen has no understanding of Christianity. Become a Better You contains some teaching that seems consistent with the Bible, and certainly there is lots of Christian terminology woven in. But Osteen teaches what is clearly a woefully inadequate theology of sin, repentance, sanctification and life. Osteen seems unable or unwilling to bring the power of the gospel to bear on life—real life. Life, he teaches, is not a meant to bring glory to God, but is meant to bring blessing and ease to the individual. He occasionally shares words that approximate the gospel, but ones that always stop short of providing the complete gospel as we find it in the Bible. “We’ve all sinned, failed, and made mistakes,” he says, “But many people don’t know they can receive God’s mercy and forgiveness.” That sounds fair, but he goes on to say, “As long as you’re doing your best and desire to do what’s right according to God’s Word, you can be assured God is pleased with you.” Is it enough to desire to do what’s right? Is God pleased with those who do their best? “That accusing voice will come to you and tell you, ‘You lost your temper last week in traffic.’ Your attitude should be, ‘That’s okay. I’m growing.’” But sin is never okay, whether we are growing or not. We can never excuse sin and can never minimize it.
My encouragement to those who intend to read this book and to those who enjoy the ministry of Joel Osteen is simply this: examine his authority. If you love Joel Osteen for who he is—a charismatic, smiling, successful, wealthy purveyor of advice—you will appreciate this book. It may change the way you live. But in that end that is all just puff. It’s like bread that is nothing but crust. If you are looking for teaching with true substance and for teaching that can really transform a life and renew a heart, look for a teacher who relies on an authority outside of himself—look for a person who humbly and faithfully teaches the Bible and who brings the wisdom of the Bible to bear on all of life.

CLAPTON, by Eric Clapton

I found a pattern in my behavior that had been repeating itself for years, decades even. Bad choices were my specialty, and if something honest and decent came along, I would shun it or run the other way.”With striking intimacy and candor, Eric Clapton tells the story of his eventful and inspiring life in this poignant and honest autobiography. More than a rock star, he is an icon, a living embodiment of the history of rock music. Well known for his reserve in a profession marked by self-promotion, flamboyance, and spin, he now chronicles, for the first time, his remarkable personal and professional journeys. Born illegitimate in 1945 and raised by his grandparents, Eric never knew his father and, until the age of nine, believed his actual mother to be his sister. In his early teens his solace was the guitar, and his incredible talent would make him a cult hero in the clubs of Britain and inspire devoted fans to scrawl “Clapton is God” on the walls of London’s Underground. With the formation of Cream, the world's first supergroup, he became a worldwide superstar, but conflicting personalities tore the band apart within two years. His stints in Blind Faith, in Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, and in Derek and the Dominos were also short-lived but yielded some of the most enduring songs in history, including the classic “Layla.” During the late sixties he played as a guest with Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan, as well as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and longtime friend George Harrison. It was while working with the latter that he fell for George’s wife, Pattie Boyd, a seemingly unrequited love that led him to the depths of despair, self-imposed seclusion, and drug addiction. By the early seventies he had overcome his addiction and released the bestselling album 461 Ocean Boulevard, with its massive hit “I Shot the Sheriff.” He followed that with the platinum album Slowhand, which included “Wonderful Tonight,” the touching love song to Pattie, whom he finally married at the end of 1979. A short time later, however, Eric had replaced heroin with alcohol as his preferred vice, following a pattern of behavior that not only was detrimental to his music but contributed to the eventual breakup of his marriage. In the eighties he would battle and begin his recovery from alcoholism and become a father. But just as his life was coming together, he was struck by a terrible blow: His beloved four-year-old son, Conor, died in a freak accident. At an earlier time Eric might have coped with this tragedy by fleeing into a world of addiction. But now a much stronger man, he took refuge in music, responding with the achingly beautiful “Tears in Heaven.”Clapton is the powerfully written story of a survivor, a man who has achieved the pinnacle of success despite extraordinary demons. It is one of the most compelling memoirs of our time.