What’s Heaven? by Maria Shriver

What’s Heaven?
by Maria Shriver

How do you explain death to children? How do you help them understand the loss of a loved one? Journalist Maria Shriver was faced with this dilemma when her grandmother, Rose, died. Her discussions with her oldest daughter, Katherine, who was six at the time, became the inspiration for Shriver’s first book for children, What’s Heaven? This touching story, beautifully illustrated by award-winning artist Sandra Speidel, is an important tool for other parents trying to explain the mystery of death to their children.

What’s Heaven? tells the story of Kate, a young girl struggling to understand the loss of her great-grandmother. Kate is full of innocent and thought-provoking questions young children ask–why do people die? How do they get to Heaven? What is it like? Kate’s questions are real, coming from Maria Shriver’s own children, nieces, and nephews as they coped with their own family’s loss. As they prepare for Great-Grandma’s funeral, Kate’s mother gives warm and reassuring explanations that help Kate (and the reader) understand that death and grieving are a natural part of life.

Death eventually touches every family, and it can be hard for parents to talk about this difficult topic. Combining her skills as a journalist with her experiences as a devoted mom, Maria Shriver has created a beautiful book that parents of all faiths can share with their children.

Maria Shriver graduated from Georgetown University. A correspondent for Dateline NBC, she lives with her husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and their four children in Santa Monica, California.

The Great American Detox Diet : 8 Weeks to Weight Loss and Well-Being

The Great American Detox Diet : 8 Weeks to Weight Loss and Well-Being
by Alex Jamieson

Here, in response to all the requests, is the detox program that undid the damage Morgan Spurlock –director and star of Super Size Me– did to his body in a month of gorging on nothing but McDonald’s

What would happen if you ate nothing but fast food for an entire month? That’s what filmmaker Morgan Spurlock attempted to find out by making his scathing tongue-in-cheek documentary Super Size Me. A 33-year-old New Yorker in excellent health, he would eat nothing but McDonald’s for 30 days, to gauge the effects on his body. The results were shocking: He gained almost 30 pounds, saw his cholesterol skyrocket, and developed chest pains and dangerously high blood pressure.

The Great American Detox is an everyman’s version of Spurlock’s detox diet. Designed by vegan chef and holistic nutritionist (and Spurlock’s significant other) Alex Jamieson, it is the program that gave Spurlock his health back. While doctors feared the damage might be permanent, Jamieson knew otherwise. She regularly sees her detox diet help clients achieve radical improvements in their emotional, spiritual, and physical health. Now she has written it up for popular use. Filled with mouthwatering recipes, it is a flexible 8-week program for weight loss, increased energy, allergy elimination, and other long-term health benefits.

ALEX JAMIESON attended New York City’s Natural Gourmet Cooking School and the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, the only holistic nutrition school in the world integrating all different dietary theories.

‘Where There’s a Will’: Closing Arguments

I have never had the pleasure of having lunch with Sir John Mortimer, but I can imagine the pleasure it must be. Not only has he written all those volumes of stuff (novels, plays, memoirs and many, many Rumpole stories), which one might discuss over the claret, but he has a mind that in its independence, imaginativeness and sheer good humor must have few equals. Now that he has written ”Where There’s a Will,” which contains his testament and advice about the good life, we can all share several delightful hours with him. So even if the invitation to lunch never comes — and one must be realistic about these things — its delights can be imagined.

By ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH
New York Times
Published: June 5, 2005

iCon Steve Jobs

iCon Steve Jobs : The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business

Lightning never strikes twice, but Steve Jobs has, transforming modern culture first with the Macintosh and more recently with the iPod. He has dazzled and delighted audiences with his Pixar movies. And he has bedeviled, destroyed, and demoralized hundreds of people along the way. Steve Jobs is the most interesting character of the digital age.

What a long, strange journey it has been. With the mainstream success of the iPod, Pixar’s string of hits and subsequent divorce from Disney, and Steve’s triumphant return to Apple, his story is better than any fiction. Ten years after the leading maverick of the computer age and the king of digital cool, crashed from the height of Apple’s meteoric rise, Steve Jobs rose from ashes in a Machiavellian coup that only he could have orchestrated-and has now become more famous than ever.

In this encore to his classic 1987 unauthorized biography of Steve Jobs-a major bestseller- Jeffrey Young examines Jobs’ remarkable resurgence, one of the most amazing business comeback stories in recent years. Drawing on a wide range of sources in Silicon Valley and Hollywood, he details how Jobs put Apple back on track, first with the iMac and then with the iPod, and traces Jobs’ role in the remarkable rise of the Pixar animation studio, including his rancorous feud with Disney’s Michael Eisner.

* Written with insider scoops and no-holds-barred style

* Based on hundreds of highly unauthorized interviews with Jobs’ nearest and dearest

* New information on the acrimonious parting between Eisner and Jobs, the personal vendetta behind the return to Apple, and the future of iPod and the music industry

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The Fight over Taxing Inherited Wealth

Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight over Taxing Inherited Wealth
by Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro

The politics of taxation can sometimes be gripping for a nation’s citizens, but not often: the arguments tend to be too technical when they are true, and too obviously bogus when they are false, to sustain public interest for long. By extension, the politics of another country’s tax system is unlikely to be of much interest to anyone with any sort of normal life. Listening to the ins and outs of other people’s fiscal battles can be like listening to other people’s dreams: interminable and almost completely unreal. Death by a Thousand Cuts is something different. It tells the story of the campaign to repeal the estate tax (what we would call inheritance tax) in the United States, which culminated in the inclusion of the measure in George Bush’s massive tax-cutting legislation of 2001.

Tax Breaks for Rich Murderers
David Runciman
London Review of Books
Vol. 27 No. 11 dated 2 June 2005

Lincoln as Industrial Capitalist, Not Frontier Farmer

In a provocative but often derivative new book, Michael Lind – the author of such iconoclastic and much debated volumes as “Vietnam: The Necessary War” and “Up From Conservatism: Why the Right Is Wrong for America” – writes that “by emphasizing one or another” of Lincoln’s “accomplishments to the exclusion of others without reference to their context in Lincoln’s life and career, later generations of Americans have substituted a saint for a politician and a symbol for a man.”

By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
New York Times
Published: May 28, 2005

Down Came the Rain : My Journey Through Postpartum Depression

Down Came the Rain : My Journey Through Postpartum Depression
by Brooke Shields

In this compelling memoir, Brooke Shields talks candidly about her experience with postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter, and provides millions of women with an inspiring example of recovery.

When Brooke Shields welcomed her newborn daughter, Rowan Francis, into the world, something unexpected followed-a crippling depression. Now, for the first time ever, in Down Came the Rain, Brooke talks about the trials, tribulations, and finally the triumphs that occurred before, during, and after the birth of her daughter.

In what is sure to strike a chord with the millions of women who suffer from depression after childbirth, America’s sweetheart Brooke Shields shares how she, too, battled this debilitating condition that is widely misunderstood, despite the fact that it affects many new mothers. She discusses the illness in the context of her life, including her struggle to get pregnant, the high expectations she had for herself and that others placed on her as a new mom, and the role of her husband, friends, and family as she struggled to attain her maternal footing in the midst of a disabling depression. And, ultimately, Brooke shares how she found a way out through talk therapy, medication, and time.

Exhibiting an informed voice and a self-deprecating sense of humor, this first memoir from a woman who has grown up before the eyes of the world is certain to attract the attention and empathy of many new mothers and fans alike.

Finding Time (Four Years) for Proust

On the third Thursday of every month, a group of Marcel Proust worshipers convenes in the reading room of the Mercantile Library on East 47th Street to savor another nibble of the four million words of “In Search of Lost Time” (“À la Recherche du Temps Perdu”), the French writer’s meditation on time.

By LILY KOPPEL
New York Times
Published: May 24, 2005

Early Bird: A Memoir of Premature Retirement

Early Bird: A Memoir of Premature Retirement
By Rodney Rothman

Everyone says they would like to retire early, but Rodney Rothman actually did it — forty years early. Burnt out, he decides at the age of twenty-eight to get an early start on his golden years. He travels to Boca Raton, Florida, where he moves in with an elderly piano teacher at Century Village, a retirement village that is home to thousands of senior citizens.

Early Bird is an irreverent, hilarious, and ultimately warmhearted account of Rodney’s journey deep into the heart of retirement. Rodney struggles for acceptance from the senior citizens he shares a swimming pool with, and battles with cranky octogenarians who want him off their turf. The day-to-day dealings begin to wear on him. Before long he observes, “I don’t think Tuesdays with Morrie would have been quite so uplifting if that guy had to spend more than one day a week with Morrie.”

Rodney throws himself into the spirit of retirement, fashioning a busy schedule of suntanning, shuffleboard, and gambling cruises. As the months pass, his neighbors seem to forget that he is fifty years younger than they are. He finds himself the potential romantic interest of an aging femme fatale. He joins a senior softball club and is disturbed to learn that he is the worst player on the team. For excitement he rides along with a volunteer police officer on his patrols, hunting for crime. But even the criminals in his community seem to have retired.

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YOU: The Owner’s Manual : An Insider’s Guide to the Body that Will Make You Healthier and Younger

YOU: The Owner’s Manual : An Insider’s Guide to the Body that Will Make You Healthier and Younger
by Michael F. Roizen, Mehmet Oz

Between your full-length mirror and high-school biology class, you probably think you know a lot about the human body. While it’s true that we live in an age when we’re as obsessed with our bodies as we are with celebrity hairstyles, the reality is that most of us know very little about what chugs, churns, and thumps throughout this miraculous, scientific, and artistic system of anatomy. Yes, you’ve owned your skin-covered shell for decades, but you probably know more about your cell-phone plan than you do about your own body. When it comes to your longevity and quality of life, understanding your internal systems gives you the power, authority, and ability to live a healthier, younger, and better life.

YOU: The Owner’s Manual challenges your preconceived notions about how the human body works and ages, then takes you on a tour through all of the highways, back roads, and landmarks inside of you. After taking a quiz that tests your body of knowledge, you’ll learn about all of your blood-pumping, food-digesting, and keys-remembering systems and organs.

Just as important, you’ll get the facts and advice you need to keep your body running long and strong. You’ll find out how diseases start and how they affect your body — as well as advice on how to prevent and beat conditions that threaten your quality of life. Complete with exercise tips, nutritional guidelines, simple lifestyle changes, and alternative approaches, You: The Owner’s Manual gives you an easy, comprehensive, and life-changing how-to plan for fending off the gremlins of aging. To top it off, you’ll also get the great-tasting and calorie-saving Owner’s Manual Diet — a thirty-recipe eating plan that’s designed with only one goal in mind: to help you live a younger life.

Welcome to your body. Why don’t you come on in and take a look around?

Read an excerpt