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Go Green for the Holidays with ENERGY STAR® Electronics

Thinking of giving cool new electronics to loved ones this holiday? Consider ENERGY STAR when you shop. With products in over 60 different categories, there is a perfect ENERGY STAR gift for everyone on your list, whether it’s a flat screen television for the sports fanatic, sleek laptop for a student, or new audio/video equipment to round out a home theater system.

ENERGY STAR electronics offer the same bells and whistles as standard models. The added bonus is that your friends and family will not only save money, they’ll help prevent global warming.  To illustrate the impact your gifts will make, considering including EPA’s free materials explaining how your gift helps the environment, including free kids activity books featuring the Lorax for stocking stuffers.  Then go ahead and download EPA’s free gift label so your friend or family member can pledge their contribution and see the collective difference we are all making with ENERGY STAR.

Gift Ideas

ENERGY STAR Television
A new ENERGY STAR television is an excellent choice for a big gift and also is a great investment for a home theater. ENERGY STAR has qualified some of the hottest, most exciting, and most popular TV technologies, including the latest LCD and Plasma displays. Plus, televisions that meet ENERGY STAR requirements are up to 30% more energy-efficient than standard models and are expected to save consumers, on average, $45 in direct energy costs over the lifetime of the product. With an average of 2.8 TVs in each U.S. household, that means about $134 per household!

ENERGY STAR Computers
A new ENERGY STAR computer is an exciting gift that will probably be enjoyed everyday. ENERGY STAR qualified computers deliver all of the features you expect while using less energy. In fact, an ENERGY STAR qualified model will use between 30% and 60% less energy depending on how it is used. In addition, by enabling power management features on your computer, you can save up to $50 per year. There is also an array of ENERGY STAR office products beyond computers, such as monitors, telephones, printers, faxes, scanners, and copy machines – any of these energy-efficient products would work well as a practical and appreciated gift.

ENERGY STAR Home Audio/Video
Not only is ENERGY STAR home audio/video equipment a thoughtful present, but you can think of it as part of a suite of environmental savings. For each component product that you add to your home theater system, you can reduce energy consumption collectively, so the savings really add up. Be sure to include an ENERGY STAR Blu-ray Disc, DVD, or CD player, and receivers to your list of gift possibilities.

Shop the AmazonGreen Store at www.amazon.com/green to find the ENERGY STAR gift you’re looking for this holiday season. For more on ENERGY STAR, including helpful tips on how you can be green while saving energy and saving money this holiday season, visit www.energystar.gov.

Thanks to ENERGY STAR and the EPA for this post.
~Amazon Green Scene

Book Zero in the Books of History Chronicles

The story of how Thomas Hunter first entered the Black Forest and forever changed our history began at a time when armies were gathered for a final battle in the valley of Migdon. Ted Dekker's Green is a story of love, betrayal, and sweeping reversals set within the apocalypse. It is the beginning: the truth behind a saga that has captured the imagination of more than a million readers with the Books of History Chronicles.

But even more, Green brings full meaning to the Circle Series as a whole, reading as both prequel to Black and the sequel to White, completing a full circle. This is Book Zero, the Circle Reborn, both the beginning and the end. The preferred starting point for new readers...and the perfect climax for the countless fans who have experienced Black, Red, and White.

Holiday Romance Reads

Add a little romance to the holiday season with the help of Heather Graham, Linda Lael Miller and Debbie Macomber:

Melody Tarleton is driving home for Christmas when a man--clad in Revolutionary War-era costume--appears right in the path of her car. Shaken, she takes the injured stranger in, listening with concern to Jake Mallory's fantastic claim that he's a Patriot soldier, sentenced to death by British authorities. The last thing he remembers is the tug of the noose.

Safe at her parents' house, Melody concocts a story to explain the handsome guest with courtly manners, strange clothes and bump on the head. Mark, her close friend who wishes he were more, is skeptical and her family is fascinated--though not half so fascinated as Melody herself. Jake is passionate, charming and unlike anyone she's ever met. Can he really be who he claims? And can a man from the past be the future she longs for?

With the aid of enchanted petals, ancient potions and the magic of the season, Melody and Jake embark on an unimaginable Christmas adventure--and discover a love that transcends time in Heather Graham's Home in Time for Christmas.

Linda Lael Miller's A Creed Country Christmas finds widowed rancher, Lincoln Creed, up against more than rustlers, wolves and the coming winter storms. His young daughter has needs beyond the beans and bacon he can barely cook. Lincoln must find little Gracie a governess, a lady who can teach and cook--yet won't set her sights on him.

Disowned for her refusal to marry, twenty-five-year-old Juliana Mitchell shares the love in her heart with her young students at the underfunded Indian school. When she meets Lincoln and Gracie, her response to the handsome rancher makes her realize she's not against marriage after all.

She longs to help, yet the two orphaned brothers in her care need her. But in the season for miracles, Providence just might find a way to bring Juliana, the boys and the Creed family together for Christmas Eve.

In Debbie Macomber's Angels at Christmas, three lovable angels visit Earth. Once a year, Shirley, Goodness and Mercy are allowed to intervene (or, more accurately, interfere) in human affairs. Despite their frequent misadventures and the chaos they often cause, things always seem to turn out right.

This Christmas, join the Christmas angels as they respond to Anne Fletcher's prayer request. She wants her son, Roy, to meet a special woman--and the angels contrive to throw Julie Wilcott in his path.

Watch as the heaven-sent messengers reunite a divorced couple, bring peace of mind to an elderly man and grant a little boy's fondest wish.

New Koontz Will Leave You 'Breathless'

Dean Koontz delivers another thrilling novel of suspense and adventure, as the lives of strangers converge around a mystery unfolding high in the Colorado mountains--and the balance of the world begins to tilt.

In the stillness of a golden September afternoon, deep in the wilderness of the Rockies, a solitary craftsman, Grady Adams, and his magnificent Irish wolfhound Merlin step from shadow into light...and into an encounter with enchantment. That night, through the trees, under the moon, a pair of singular animals will watch Grady's isolated home, waiting to make their approach.
 
A few miles away, Camillia Rivers, a local veterinarian, begins to unravel the threads of a puzzle that will bring all the forces of a government in peril to her door.
 
At a nearby farm, long-estranged identical twins come together to begin a descent into darkness...In Las Vegas, a specialist in chaos theory probes the boundaries of the unknowable...On a Seattle golf course, two men make matter-of-fact arrangements for murder? Along a highway by the sea, a vagrant scarred by the past begins a trek toward his destiny...
 
Dean Koontz takes readers into the moment between one turn of the world and the next, across the border between knowing and mystery. It is a journey that will leave all who take it Breathless.

Esquire's Augmented Reality Issue

You have to give Esquire an "A" for effort, with their new attempt to think outside the magazine box, or page.  The December 09 issue featuring Robert Downey Jr. sitting on an oddly shaped box is actually used for augmented reality.  A quick definition, augmented reality is mixing the real world with a computer generated world, creating a mixed reality of both.  In this case, if you hold the issue up to a web cam (after downloading an application first from Esquire), it recognizes the unique shape of the box and Robert Downey Jr. jumps off the cover, speaks about the issue and of course, plugs his new movie.  You can tilt the magazine and the landscape will tilt along with you, providing different levels of interaction.  There are several pages that have this augmented reality identifier, including a Lexus ad (Lexus no doubt helped to cover the hefty cost), funny jokes from a beautiful woman and more.

Overall it provides a few minutes of entertainment, but unless other augmented reality issues follow, it leaves an unused application on your computer.  My ideal augmented reality would be one where I'm 20 lbs. lighter, I can stay home all day and beer is free; hopefully Esquire is working on that for the next attempt.

Here's David Granger, Editor in Chief of Esquire Magazine, explaining how the issue works.

-darrenv

Gilded

Gilded is the beautifully written history of high society in Newport, Rhode Island, from the acclaimed author of Party of the Century, Deborah Davis.

Newport is the legendary and beautiful home of American aristocracy and the sheltered super-rich. Many of the country's most famous blueblood families--the closest thing we have to royalty--have lived and summered in Newport since the nineteenth century. The Astors, the Vanderbilts, Edith Wharton, JFK and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Doris Duke, and Klaus and Sunny von Bulow are just a few of the many names who have called the city home. Gilded takes you along as you explore the fascinating heritage of the Newport elite, from its first colonists to the newest of its new millennium millionaires, showing the evolution of a city intent on living in its own world.

Homebuyers Beware

In Homebuyers Beware, Carolyn Warren reveals new secrets homebuyers simply can't afford to miss and exposes new scams that target today's eager consumers--including new loans that look great on paper but are every bit as dangerous as yesterday's subprimes. Unlike other mortgage guides, this book reflects today's radically new mortgage requirements, in addition to the latest federal housing legislation and how to improve your credit rating. From its up-to-the-minute guidance on real estate negotiation to its powerful tips on getting lower interest rates and avoiding bogus junk fees, this is a valuable book if you're in the market for a home.

Step Into a World of Possibility

Feel trapped in an unsatisfying place in your professional or personal life? Are you not living up to your potential or achieving the things you want to achieve? Especially in tough times like these, it's easy to feel stuck, hopeless, and powerless to change the way things are. However, many of the circumstances that seem to block us in our daily lives may only do so based on a framework of assumptions that we carry with us. Draw a different frame around the same set of circumstances and new pathways come into view. Find the right framework and extraordinary accomplishments become an every-day reality.

In the timeless classic, The Art of Possibility, authors Rosamund and Ben Zander offer a set of breakthrough principles that will help you realize your creative potential--in your career and beyond. From "Giving an A," to the mysterious "Rule Number 6," each chapter offers a different practice for personal transformation that promises to enhance not only your life, but also the organizations and relationships in which you participate. Whether you're dealing with a management shakeup at work, a derailed exercise routine, or disputes in your family or marriage, these practices can help reorient you in a universe of possibility. Are you ready for this transformational journey to greater happiness and fulfillment?

Free Adventure

Is there evil in a modern glass house built on the site of a terrible Civil War prison? Are there spirits and resurrected soldiers in the basement seeking revenge on their wartime enemies? Will they mistake you for the general who landed them in prison in the first place? Unimaginable dangers, including alternate worlds and half-human baboons, await you when you download Choose Your Own Adventure's House of Danger for free until November 26th.

'Elements' of Success

It is said that F. Scott Fitzgerald once said to Ernest Hemingway: "The rich are different than us." (Hemingway, not as enamored by the rich as Scott, is alleged to have said back: "Yes, they have more money.")

But, to twist that story, the successful are different. I'm not referring to financial success; I am referring to people who are world class at something. While this often coincides with financial success, people who became world class sought something other than financial wealth: they sought out a dream--THEIR DREAM.

I have had the really great pleasure to meet many people who are certifiably world class at what they do, in the course of what I do for a living. And I can tell you something that strikes me like a hammer on the head when I am around them.

They are animated by a vision of what they want, a goal, a dream, a desire. They are in love with their dream. And, once they have the vision, they act on it with passion.

But don't take it from me...

Kevin Elko is America's number one sports psychologist, and has worked with NFL and NCAA champion football teams for two decades. His mission in life is to help people reach their dreams. Read Kevin's take on success in two Elements from FT Press, found exclusively here on Amazon: Success Starts With a Pure Vision and Seek Success, Not Approval.

Stewart Emery is one of the fathers of the modern human potential movement, going back to his days as a Co-founder of est. Try out his Element: Whatever You Are, Be a Good One.

I hope you enjoy. I hope you reach your dreams.
Timothy C. Moore
VP, Publisher
Wharton School Publishing
FTPress