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Soulless

Alexia Tarabotti has problems. She's been placed on the shelf by London high society. Her father is both Italian and, most inconveniently, dead. She likes to read and is fascinated by the latest inventions. She also just happens to be Soulless.

In a world where having excess soul can mean entree into immortality (and the most fashionable parties), this last could prove to be Alexia's biggest problem of all. Especially when she finds herself accidentally killing a vampire (how embarrassing!) and facing off against Queen Victoria's best werewolf investigator.

--Gail Carriger

Grant Writing 101

Written by authors who have won millions of dollars in grants, and revised to include vital new information about how to seek grants in today's economic climate, this new edition of the classic book on grant seeking provides a comprehensive, step-by-step guide for grant writers. It demystifies the process while revealing indispensable advice from funders and grant recipients. The Only Grant-Writing Book You'll Ever Need will continue to be essential reading for grant seekers everywhere.

12 Steps to Visionary Decision Making

In The Influential Leader, John Edmund Haggai takes a spiritual approach to teaching readers how they can become leaders who influence people, inspire results, and accomplish great things.

To do this he focuses on 12 characteristics, including:

    --humility
    --communication
    --vision
    --goal-setting
    --self–control
    --opportunity
    --staying power
    --authority

Haggai has trained more than 60,000 people in 177 countries through the Haggai Institute.

Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy

In her inspiring new book, Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy, Lidia Bastianich awakens in us a new respect for food, and for the people who produce it in the little-known parts of Italy that she explores. All of the recipes reflect the regions from which they spring, and in translating them to our home kitchens, Lidia passes on time-honored techniques and wonderful, uncomplicated recipes for dishes bursting with different regional flavors--the kind of elemental, good family cooking that is particularly appreciated today.

Enjoy this sample recipe from Lidia's new book, with a sauce that is from the old fishing port of Termoli:

SPAGHETTI WITH CALAMARI, SCALLOPS AND SHRIMP
Spaghetti di Tornola  

Serves 6
For me, there's no better way to dress spaghetti than with a fresh seafood sauce. And this sauce, from
the old fishing port of Termoli in Molise, is as simple and delicious as any. In the restaurants by the
docks in Termoli (near the old citadel called Tornola), just-caught seafood is served in a brodetto. You
eat the seafood, and then the kitchen will toss spaghetti into the sauce you've left in your bowl. In my
version of spaghetti di Tornola, the calamari, scallops, and shrimp are part of the pasta dressing, but
you can eat the brodetto in separate courses, Termoli-style, if you like. In summer, I use my mother's
home-grown, sun-ripened cherry tomatoes to make an exceptional sauce, but in winter, a couple of
cups of canned plum tomatoes make a fine substitute.

1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for the pasta pot 
half pound medium calamari, cleaned
half pound sea scallops (preferably "dry," not soaked in preservative)
1 pound large shrimp
one-fourth cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus 2 tablespoons more for finishing the pasta
6 plump garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
4 cups cherry tomatoes, halved; or 2 cups canned Italian plum tomatoes, crushed
one-fourth teaspoon peperoncino flakes, or to taste
1 pound spaghetti 
one-fourth cup chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh Italian parsley

Recommended equipment:  A large pot, 8-quart capacity, for cooking the pasta; a heavy-bottomed
skillet or saute pan, 12-inch diameter or larger.

Fill the large pot with salted water (at least 6 quarts water with 1 tablespoon salt), and heat to
a boil.

To prepare the seafood: Cut the calamari bodies, including the tentacles, into half-inch rings. Pull
off  the side muscle or "foot" from the scallops and discard. Remove the shells, tails, and digestive
veins from the shrimp; rinse and pat dry.

Pour the olive oil into the skillet, set it over medium-high heat, scatter in the sliced garlic, and
cook, stirring occasionally, until it begins to sizzle and color, about 1 to 2 minutes. Dump in the
cherry tomatoes, sprinkle on the teaspoon salt and the peperoncino, and cook for about 5 minutes,
stirring and tossing tomatoes in the pan, until softened and sizzling in their juices but still intact.
 
Start cooking the pasta first and the seafood right after, so they are ready at the same time. Drop
the spaghetti into the boiling water, stir, and return the water to a boil.
 
As it cooks, scatter the calamari rings and tentacles in the pan with the tomatoes, and get them
sizzling over medium-high heat. Let the pieces cook for a minute or two, then toss in the scallops,
and spread them out to heat and start sizzling quickly. After they've cooked for a couple of minutes,
toss in the shrimp, ladle in a cup of boiling pasta water, stir the seafood and sauce together, bring to
a steady simmer, and cook for 2 or 3 minutes, just until the shrimp turn pink and begin to curl.

As soon as the spaghetti is barely al dente, lift it from the pot, drain briefly, and drop into the
skillet. Toss the pasta and the simmering sauce together for a minute or two, until the spaghetti is
nicely coated with sauce and perfectly al dente, and the seafood is distributed throughout the pasta.
Turn off  the heat, sprinkle on the basil and parsley, and drizzle on another 2 tablespoons olive oil.
Toss well, heap the spaghetti into warm bowls, giving each portion plenty of seafood, and serve
immediately.

A Conversation with Marcus Buckingham

We recently caught up with Marcus Buckingham, author of Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently. 

Amazon.com: You are internationally known as the world's leading expert in personal strengths. What led you to bring your life-strengthening message to women in particular?

Marcus Buckingham: The leading data on women's happiness over the last 40 years is compelling and disappointing. Women have gained greater power, broader influence, higher education, and more money; women earn 60 percent of all MAs, and 37 percent of women are in senior management supervisory positions compared to 31 percent of men. There are all sorts of significant advances in rights, responsibilities, and influence that women have achieved over 40 years, but according to the research, during that same time period, women's daily life satisfaction has gone downhill consistently both relative to where they were 40 years ago and relative to men. Men are actually slightly happier now than they were, probably due to the slight increase in prosperity that we've had, while women's daily satisfaction has dropped steadily, even given that greater prosperity. It's true of women in the work force, those not working, who have kids or don't, and it's true of 12th grade girls. Over last 40 years, among 12th graders who have been studied every single year, it's fairly clear now that boys' life satisfaction is trending up, while 12th grade girls' life satisfaction is trending down. And over the last 15 years or so, consistently, 12th grade girls are more anxious, more stressed, and have less subjective well-being than boys.

As a researcher, I find this trend discouraging: half of our population is experiencing decreasing net happiness and satisfaction with life. When we look at what makes people engaged and fulfilled with their lives, everyone from economists to psychologists seems to agree that the feeling of self-efficacy, feeling valued and effective and in your "strength zone" is critical--that the happiest, most successful people are those who have figured out ways to play to the best of themselves in each part of their lives. As an employee, wife, spouse, mother, or daughter, they find themselves in situations or activities where they really feel that their strengths are engaged and called upon, they feel "in the zone." My work has centered at the intersection of those two knowledge bases--the research revealing the downward trend in women's life satisfaction and the understanding that your strength zone is one of the causes of life satisfaction and happiness--and I felt that this is an area where I have insight and can make a useful contribution.

Amazon.com: What is causing this ongoing dissatisfaction and unhappiness in life?
 
Marcus Buckingham: There are two causes. One is an excess of choice. Life's tricky for women because they have to make more choices than men. And yes, choice is good, but boy, you better be an expert choice-maker. If you give us four pairs of jeans, we easily select our favorite, but given 47 pairs of jeans, we toss and turn about which one we should pick and then second-guess our choice, thinking perhaps that one of the other 46 was the right one. If your internal compass doesn't allow you to cut the 47 pair of jeans down to seven, making it easier to choose, you are challenged by the fact that you have gained more and more choice, and taken the responsibility of your decisions, but haven't relinquished any other responsibilities. For many women, the stress has become almost extreme. Most women don't get much help in knowing what choices will strengthen them, or how to have a strong internal compass so they don’t wonder about or regret the choices made.

The second cause is that the advice women have been given is misleading. Women are told to strive for balance. It's impossible to balance a morning, let alone a day, or a life. You'll never balance perfectly the amount of hours spent on each particular aspect of your life, and it's not satisfying when you try. If your goal in life is balance, you will be forever disappointing yourself.

Women are told to be good jugglers. You're supposed to be able to keep everything up in the air at once, juggling all the different parts and pieces of your life, and your challenge becomes, "How do I not drop
anything?" The solutions offered are ideas like "better time management," or "learn to put up boundaries" or "learn to say no." Unfortunately, all of that advice is bad. The core skill of juggling is throwing--if you are a juggler, you never hold on to anything long enough to really feel it, and if you're never holding on to the particular moments in life long enough to really feel them, then it doesn't matter how many boundaries you've built; if the things going on between the boundaries are not fulfilling to you, you're going to have an empty life. It doesn't matter how many things you say "no" to, if you don't recognize the right moments to say "yes" to.

Amazon.com: What do you mean when you say that the happiest and most successful women know how to "catch and cradle"?

Marcus Buckingham: If you look at the happiest and most successful women--whether they are working or not, or have families or don't--they seem to realize that the challenge of life is not to juggle, the challenge is to catch--to select a few clear strong moments from each aspect of your life and reach for those, draw them in to you. If you want to live a full life, a life that fulfills you, then you need to know in each part of your life which are the specific moments that really renew your energy, and bring you joy, and go after them. You want to imbalance your life toward creating more of those specific moments. It's a very different approach. It's not "learn to say no," it’s "learn to say yes." Learn who you are clearly enough to know which moments you need to say "yes" to, and understand that the moments won't be the same for your sister, or your next-door neighbor, or your co-worker.

I call this "catch and cradle." In contrast with manic juggling, there is a deliberate reaching for specific moments to cradle. When you cradle a baby, you concentrate on it, feel its weight, and allow it to move you; you're very responsive to it. Cradling is a very nurturing position; you're not grasping it to you, there's hopefulness to it.

As an example, Candace Nelson realized she had to get her career on the right track. She was 30 years old, a successful venture capitalist, but not fulfilled in life. Talking to her mom on the phone, she remembered that when they traveled, they would always visit the local patisseries and bakeries. Candace thought, "I’ve always loved the smell of vanilla and baked bread. I'm going to sign up for cooking classes in the evening." Cradling means that you pay attention to the thing that you're holding, and while pulling the gizzards out of some bird, Candace realized, "It's not cooking; I like baking, and particularly I like baking to celebrate special occasions with birthday cakes or happy cupcakes." She started baking and selling cupcakes out of her house, and it progressed so well, she felt she had a solid business opportunity. Candace founded Sprinkles in Los Angeles and it became a massive success with five stores and mentions in national magazines. People say "find your passion," but you don't find it, you build your passion out of a moment that catches your attention; you cradle it and allow it to grow and see where it takes you as it becomes more detailed, vivid, and substantial. For Candace, it became her career and life.

Amazon.com: Your Strong Life Test is a unique profile-builder that helps women identify their Lead Role, the role they were born to play in life. How does it work and what is its benefit to women?

Marcus Buckingham: Life is really loud and demanding. I designed the Strong Life Test to help women quiet the noise and sort through the clamor of competing voices, expectations, and demands in any situation that they face, whether as a spouse, relative, mother, or employee. The Strong Life Test helps women recognize, given their lead role, what kind of strong moments they should look for. The test is like a compass; it helps you to know where to start to look, in any domain of your life, and to know what kind of moments are going to strengthen you the most, invigorate you the most, bring joy or excitement or fun, because that is who you are. It doesn't give you all answers; it doesn't indicate that you should start a cupcake business, but it tells you where to start.

Windows 7 Secrets

The Best of Windows 7 Secrets delivers a concise and value-packed punch with the most important Windows 7 features that all Windows 7 users will want to know about. Available exclusively to Kindle customers until December, it is designed to deliver the most important content on this major Microsoft upgrade. The Best of Windows 7 Secrets is written by two of the best-known Windows experts, and is the go-to guide for every Windows 7 user with a Kindle.

Kindle for PC Coming Soon

The Kindle team is excited to announce that soon, you'll be able to read more than 360,000 (and counting!) Kindle books on your computer. Our free application for your Windows PC is coming--no Kindle required. Even when you don't have your Kindle with you, you can access your Kindle books, and Whispersync automatically synchronizes your last page read and annotations between devices. Find out more at: http://www.amazon.com/kindleforpc. Stay tuned.

The Meltdown Years

2008 will go down in history as the year the U.S. financial system plunged over the cliff--and pulled the global economy along with it. Nevertheless, says Financial Times editor Wolfgang Munchau, this is not an American problem requiring an American solution. The meltdown was caused by inherent defects in the global economy. It is the world's problem, and it will take international action to fix it.

An updated edition of Verboben, Munchau's award-winning book published in Germany in 2008, The Meltdown Years provides a solid foundation in the structure and workings of the global economy, presents a broad view of the financial crisis, and provides actionable advice for creating a more durable financial order.

The Original Curse

Did the Chicago Cubs throw the World Series in 1918 and get away with it? Who were the players involved and why did they do it? Were gambling and corruption more widespread across the leagues than previously believed? Were the players and teams cursed by their actions? Were the legends really true? Finally, is it time to rewrite baseball history? With exclusive access to surprising new evidence, Sporting News reporter Sean Deveney details a scandal at the core of baseball's greatest folklore in a golden era as exciting and controversial as our sports world today. This inside look at the pivotal year of 1918 proves that baseball has always been a game overrun with colorful characters, intense human drama, and explosive controversy. The Original Curse is not just about baseball. It is a sweeping portrait of America at war in 1918.

The Book That Contains All Books

Today, Kindle with U.S. and international wireless began shipping. In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, columnist Stephen Marche wrote, "On Monday, the Kindle 2 will become the first e-reader available globally. The only other events as important to the history of the book are the birth of print and the shift from the scroll to bound pages."

We on the Kindle team are enormously humbled by Marche's piece, and we wanted to share his perspective.

In The Book That Contains All Books: The globally available Kindle could mark as big a shift for reading as the printing press and the codex, Marche is "immensely excited for the new phase of the book. So far the new technology has been called the "e-reader," a term obviously picked by engineers, not poets. In literary terms it's a transbook, by which I mean that it is the book which can contain all books. Why are so many writers so afraid of this staggeringly wonderful possibility? A book is a singular object that can contain many voices, but the transbook has the potential to be a singular object containing all voices. It is not just another kind of media; it is the dream of ultimate text."

"Kindle 2 isn't really about what we may or may not want as readers and writers. It's about what the book wants to be. And the book wants to be itself and everything. It wants to be a vast abridgment of the universe that you can hold in your hand. It wants to be the transbook."

Marche is the pop culture columnist at Esquire magazine. His most recent book, Shining at the Bottom of the Sea is a literary anthology of an invented country.

Hop over to the Wall Street Journal to read the full article. We think it's well worth the read.