Two producers of Today share their experiences and wisdom on baby's first year, along with priceless advice and anecdotes from the anchors and experts on America's number-one morning show.Being a new mother can be extremely nerve-racking and exhausting, and many moms find parenting advice, comfort, and humor on the Today show. Now all that advice and more is collected in Today's Moms, a one-stop guide to everything a new mother needs to know about her baby's first year, from the best breastfeeding products to reclaiming fun and intimacy with her partner after the baby. Full of behind-the-scenes stories with moms and experts, Today's Moms provides the most up-to-date news and information with easy, entertaining ways to help mothers keep their sanity. And it's all medically reviewed by NBC medical experts Dr. Nancy Snyderman and Dr. Tanya Benenson.Contributors include Meredith Vieira, Ann Curry, Matt Lauer, Al Roker, Kathie Lee Gifford, and many others. Written in a friendly and accessible tone, with straightforward, honest advice and expert information, Today's Moms will help all moms feel more confident about their first year of motherhood.

Truth be told, they were mostly in it for the money On February 13, 2003, a plane carrying three American military contractors on a recon patrol crash-landed in the jungle-covered mountains of Colombia. Within minutes, FARC guerrillas swarmed the wreckage and killed the American pilot and a Colombian crew member as they tried to escape. The survivors Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell, and Thomas Howes were marched at gunpoint into the rain forest. They would live in constant darkness under the jungle canopy as they faced starvation, fights with fellow hostages, and threats of execution often with their necks shackled together.The Colombian government sent 147 soldiers to rescue the Americans. Led by a bold yet corpulent lieutenant, the troops spent weeks subsisting on monkey meat and Amazon rodents as they chased the guerrillas deeper into the jungle. But then a soldier on a bathroom break stuck his machete into the ground and pulled out 20 million pesos, equaling $7,000. Pretty soon, the young, poor, and exhausted troops realized they had stumbled upon a buried rebel cache of $20 million. Within three days, the GIs burned through their newfound fortune, splurging on booze, sex, and flat-screen televisions. And though the money brought pleasure, for many of the soldiers it would end in criminal prosecution or even death by FARC hit men.Law of the Jungle places the Colombian hostage story in its full context by exploring the inner workings of the FARC, the U.S.-backed war on drugs, and Colombia's efforts to free the rebel-held prisoners. John Otis, a veteran journalist on the Latin American beat, spins an edge-of-your-seat adventure narrative that offers a shocking cautionary tale about the pursuit of fortune in one of the world's most dangerous places.

A healthy baby is a HAPPYBABY!From the most respected names in parenting come this definitive book on child rearing the all-natural way. HappyBaby combines decades of medical expertise from Dr. Robert W. Sears, renowned doctor in the Sears family of pediatricians, with the nutritional know-how of Amy Marlow, registered dietitian for the popular HAPPYBABY line of organic baby food. Look no further than between the pages of this jam-packed guide to find answers to critically important questions in the life of your baby, such as: What should I eat when nursing my baby to ensure the most nutritional feedingsWhat simple tips can help me manage the inevitable stress that comes with a new baby in the houseI'm worried about toxins in my baby's nursery. How can I green the new roomWhen do I introduce my child to solid foods, and how can I do it in a safe and fun wayHow can I develop healthy eating habits in my childrenThis groundbreaking book offers a proactive, harmonious approach to parenting that's easier, greener, and just plain better for your precious infant or toddler.

Professional blackjack player Kevin Blackwood shares his million-dollar winning strategies for mastering the odds and consistently beating the house at their own game. Play Blackjack Like the Pros is the requisite introduction to the modern game of blackjack, including high and low stakes casino, shoe games (several decks shuffled together), online, and tournaments. Blackwood begins with the basic rules of play and then moves on to teach his proven card-counting method, broken-down into three levels: novice, recreational, and professional. He also covers camouflaging techniques (it's perfectly legal to count cards, but if the house catches you they will kick you out), money management, and team play. Blackwood includes many stories of his and other professionals' triumphs at the tables and keeps the highly technical language that bogs down most gaming books to an absolute minimum. Play Blackjack Like the Pros is written in the style of Phil Hellmuth's Play Poker Like the Pros using easy-to-understand lessons that all levels of players can quickly benefit from. Blackwood is one of the world's top card counters. He began with only a few hundred dollars and has won over a million playing blackjack. In Play Blackjack Like the Pros he demonstrates how to earn over $10,000 a month from just a few days work. Blackjack is set to balloon in popularity. Ben Mezrich's book on the MIT card counting team Bringing Down the House was on the New York Times bestseller list for weeks and is being made into a movie staring Kevin Spacey. Blackjack Tournaments are growing in popularity with many of the top casinos offering large prize pools. Online Blackjack is currently a multi-million dollar industry. Blackwood keeps the highly technical language that bogs down most gaming books to an absolute minimum. Foreword by Stanford , author of Professional Blackjack and the master of modern card counting.

Why is ancient Greece importantBecause, quite simply, if we want to understand the modern Western world, we need to look back to the Greeks. Consider the way we think about ethics, about the nature of beauty and truth, about our place in the universe, about our mortality. All this we have learned from the ancient Greeks. They molded the basic disciplines and genres in which we still organize thought, from poetry to drama, from medicine to philosophy, from history to ethnography.Packed with useful facts, including a timeline, a "mythology for dummies," a who's who, a guide to Homer's epics, and a handy map for those struggling to know their Lemnos from their Lesbos, It's All Greek to Me is an entertaining and insightful tour through the world of the ancient Greeks. Why are some laws DraconianWhat is an Achilles' heelWhy were the Spartans spartanCharlotte Higgins provides these answers and more, arming average readers with the knowledge they need to understand the Greeks and their tremendous contributions to our lives. This book aims to unlock the richness of a fascinating culture and place it where it should be in the mainstream of life.

America is hurtling toward socialism. What should free market capitalists do with their moneyBarack Obama is aggressively pushing the American economy toward socialism. Maybe he will succeed, maybe he won't. In the meantime, what should the rest of us do with our moneyIn this unique and timely book, financial adviser Jerry Bowyer combines critical analysis of Obama's economic policies with sound investment guidelines for free market capitalists. Under Obama, taxes will rise, energy will become more expensive, regulation will increase, corporate stocks will suffer, credit will remain tight, and national markets will stagnate. Bowyer explains why this is happening and offers helpful advice on how to profit under the new antigrowth regime for as long as it lasts.

The widely exposed transgressions of priests within the Catholic Church stunned the faithful and sent a new surge of energy through the progressive church reform movement in the United States. Despite the movement's growing profile, the world has only recently learned that Catholic women are the driving force behind reform. Good Catholic Girls is a lively account of these courageous women, as seen through the eyes of an impassioned journalist, Angela Bonavoglia. They include Joan Chittister, the Benedictine nun who refused to obey a Vatican order not to speak at an international conference for women's ordination groups; Mary Ramerman, ordained a Catholic priest before 3,000 jubilant supporters; Frances Kissling, whose fight for women's reproductive rights has shaken the Church at its highest levels; Barbara Blaine, a priest abuse survivor who created the nation's most powerful voice for victims; and Sister Jeannine Gramick, who built a pioneering ministry to gays and lesbians, despite Vatican orders to silence her and ban her work.Backed by supporters worldwide, these and other women are rethinking Catholic theology, changing the face of ministry, and resurrecting the lost lives of female church leaders. As Bonavoglia shows, the hierarchy ignores them at its peril.

A witty and engaging history of the first botanists, interwoven with stories of today's extraordinary plants found in the garden and the labIn Paradise Under Glass, Ruth Kassinger recounts with grace and humor her journey from brown thumb to green, sharing the lessons that she learned from building a home conservatory in the wake of a devastating personal crisis. In A Garden of Marvels, she extends the story. "This book was born of a murder, a murder I committed," she begins. The victim was a kumquat tree. Though she diligently did her best watering, fertilizing, repotting, and pruning the plant turned brown and brittle. Why did the kumquat die when other plants in the garden that received the same attention thrivedshe wondered. It was an experience that offered invaluable insight. While she knew the basic rules of caring for indoor plants, Kassinger realized that she understood very little about plant physiology how roots, stems, leaves, and flowers actually function. Determined not to repeat her failure, she set out to learn the fundamentals of botany in order to become a better gardener. A Garden of Marvels is the story of her wise and enchanting odyssey to discover the secret life of plants. Kassinger retraces the progress of the first botanists including a melancholy Italian anatomist, a renegade French surgeon, a stuttering English minister, an obsessive German schoolteacher, and Charles Darwin who banished myths and misunderstandings and discovered that flowers have sex, leaves eat air, roots choose their food, and hormones make morning glories climb fence posts. She goes out into the world as well, visiting modern gardens, farms, and labs to discover the science behind extraordinary plants like one-ton pumpkins, truly black petunias, ferns that eat the arsenic in contaminated soil, biofuel grass that grows twelve feet tall, and the world's only photosynthesizing animal. Kassinger also introduces us to modern scientific research that offers hope for combatting climate change and alleviating world hunger. She then transfers her insights to her own garden, where she nurtures a "cocktail" tree that bears five kinds of fruit, cures an ailing Buddha's Hand plant with beneficial fungi, and gets a tree to text her when it's thirsty. Intertwining personal anecdotes, accessible science, and little-known history, A Garden of Marvels takes us on an eye-opening journey into Kassinger's garden and yours offering us a new appreciation of this exquisite gift of nature: "Our garden is more than a marvel. It's as close to a miracle as there is on Earth."

Close your eyes and picture the Heisman Trophy. The form is easyto conjure, a graceful, fluid posethat is football past and football present in one dignified figure ...The story of the Heisman Trophyis an american epic.-- from the PrefaceNo sport in America can match the pageantry, raw emotion, and thrilling tradition of college football. It is a world in which a twenty-year-old kid can become a national sensation overnight, in which coaches are deified and rivalries burn white-hot.And in this world, there is no individual award so revered as the Heisman Trophy. Every yearsince 1935, one player has run, thrown, or kicked his way into the pantheon of American sport. From Nile "The Cornbelt Comet" Kinnick in the '30s, West Point's legendary backfield of Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis in the '40s, and Paul Hornung in the '50s to Ernie Davis, the Jackie Robinson of college football, miracle worker Doug Flutie, and modern-day Sunday warrior Eddie George, the history of the Heisman gives us insight into the heart of America through the lives of the heroes that entranced an entire nation for one brilliant season. Extraordinary in ways that transcend athletic ability, Heisman winners have gone on to become war heroes, Fortune 500 CEOs, and high-level politicians.As John Heisman himself once said, the Heisman Trophy "is meant to exemplify the grandeur of a thousand men." Here within these pages are intimate portraits of some of the winners who also exemplify the grit and glory of America's beloved game and of the coaching giants such as Bear Bryant, Woody Hayes, and Red Blaik, who inspired the winners to achieve.Told in the evocative words of Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist Bill Pennington, their heart-stopping experiences on the field and off will have Americans enthralled until the final page is turned.

In this comprehensive and accessible guide, long-term care expert Stella Henry helps readers navigate the daunting logistics and powerful emotions of making care decisions for an elderly parent or loved one. Drawing from her 36 years as a registered nurse and a nursing home administrator, as well as her experience caring for both her parents (both of whom suffered the ravages of Alzheimer's disease), Henry tackles all the tough issues: spotting the warning signs of dementia, redefining sibling roles, doing a walk-through at an assisted living facility or nursing home, making the move, and coping with "take me home!" demands.She also explains the medical, legal, and insurance maze. In a time when almost 10 million Americans currently need long-term care, The Eldercare Handbook is an essential read.

On the morning of February 24, 1942, on the Black Sea near Istanbul, an explosion ripped through a decrepit former cattle barge filled with Jewish refugees. One man clung fiercely to a piece of deck, fighting to survive. Nearly eight hundred others -- among them, more than one hundred children -- perished.In Death on the Black Sea, the story of the Struma, its passengers, and the events that led to its destruction are investigated and fully revealed in two vivid, parallel accounts, set six decades apart. One chronicles the international diplomatic maneuvers and callousness that resulted in the largest maritime loss of civilian life during World War II. The other recounts a recent attempt to locate the Struma at the bottom of the Black Sea, an effort initiated and pursued by the grandson of two of the victims. A vivid reconstruction of a grim exodus aboard a doomed ship, Death on the Black Sea illuminates a forgotten episode of World War II and pays tribute to the heroes, past and present, who keep its memory alive.

James Watson, J. Craig Venter, Francis Collins, Cynthia Kenyon . . . you may not know them, but you should. They are the masterminds of genetics and biotechnology who want you to live to be 150 years old, to regenerate your heart and brain, to create synthetic life. For better or worse, they are about to alter life on earth forever.Award-winning journalist David Ewing Duncan tells the remarkable stories of cutting-edge bioscientists, revealing their quirky, uniquely fascinating, sometimes vaguely unsettling personas as a means to understand their science and the astonishing implications of their work. This book seamlessly combines myth, biography, scholarship, and wit that poses the all-important question: Can we actually trust these masterminds?

Vanderbilt: the very name signifies wealth. The family patriarch, the Commodore, built up a fortune that made him the world's richest man by 1877. Yet, less than fifty years after the Commodore's death, one of his direct descendants died penniless, and no Vanderbilt was counted among the world's richest people. Fortune's Children tells the dramatic story of all the amazingly colorful spenders who dissipated such a vast inheritance.

When small- and medium-sized business owners first hear George Cloutier's rules, they often think he's a madman. His controversial rules for doing business rules that aren't taught at Harvard Business School include:The best family business has one member.Weekends are for working, not playing golf or coaching.Never pay your vendors on time.Wear your control freak badge with pride.Quit denial: if your business is failing during a recession, it's your fault. As the founder and CEO of American Management Services, Cloutier has emerged as "the leading advocate for small business" (Reuters), having spent over thirty years guiding business owners through the tough choices that line the road to profitability. He and his company have worked with more than six thousand companies, averting certain ruin for some and generating seemingly impossible growth and profitability for others.Cloutier graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Business School, but the lessons in this book aren't from there. Unlike his classmates, most of whom headed straight to Wall Street, Cloutier has been on the docks at 2 a.m. counting heads of lettuce for food distributors to make sure nothing would disappear without a waybill. He's spent long, overnight hours in truck stops, making sure sticky fingers stayed out of the tills. Cloutier and his colleagues at American Management Services become personal pitt bulls to the CEOs who hire them, doing whatever it takes to bring their clients' businesses back into long-term profitability.Profits Aren't Everything, They're the Only Thing is the long- overdue wake-up call for 23 million small- and midsize business owners across America. This book serves up the hard-boiled, unadulterated truth to aspiring and established entrepreneurs, without apologies. His no-nonsense advice may be hard to hear at times, but it works.

Meet Helena Andrews, sassy, single, smart, and, yes, a bitch but Tina Fey said it best, bitch is the new black!When Helena Andrews heard this declaration on Saturday Night Live, her first reaction was How daaare youBut after a commercial break and some thought, she decided to poke at the stereotype that says "successful" and "bitch" are synonyms. Unafraid and frank, she comes to realize that being a bitch is sometimes the best way to be except, of course, when it's not. Bitch Is the New Black follows Andrews sexy, single, and a self-described smart-ass on her trip from kidnapped daughter of a lesbian to Washington, D.C., political reporter who can't remember a single senator's name. Told in Andrews's singular voice, this addictive memoir explores the roller coaster of being educated and single while trying to become an "actual adult" and find love. In these candid yet heartfelt essays, she chronicles that ride from beginning to end: a childhood spent on an all-white island, escaping via episodes of The Cosby Show; being set up with Obama's "body guy" Reggie Love by Maureen Dowd; and the shocking suicide of a best friend. Through it all, Andrews and her gang of girlfriends urge each other to "keep it moving." But no one can stay strong all the time not even the women we believe do so without trying. As Andrews says, "Despite the fact that the most recognizable woman in the United States is black, popular culture still hasn't moved past the only adjective apparently meant to describe us "strong." She is also flawed, tired, naive, greedy, gutsy, frightened, and kind: secret sides that come out in honest detail here.

A stylishly smart collection of practical advice for the busy modern womanWith information on entertaining, etiquette, housekeeping, basic home repair, decorating, sex, and beauty, this indispensable book has everything today's young woman should know-but may not! The Modern Girl's Guide to Life is a collection of all the helpful tips and secrets that get passed on from generation to generation, but many of us have somehow missed. It's full of practical, definitive advice on the basics -- the day-to-day necessities like finding a bra that fits, balancing a checkbook, making a decent cup of coffee, and hemming a pair of pants. Modern Girl guru Jane Buckingham includes loads of savvy counsel to help us feel more refined, in charge, and together as we navigate the rocky terrain that is twenty-first-century womanhood.

An entertaining and erudite history that offers a fresh look at America's first founding father, the creation of his legend, and what it means for our nation and ourselves George Washington's death on December 14, 1799, dealt a dreadful blow to public morale. For three decades, Americans had depended on his leadership to guide them through every trial. At the cusp of a new century, the fledgling nation, caught in another war (this time with its former ally France), desperately needed to believe that Washington was and would continue to be there for them.Thus began the extraordinary immortalization of this towering historical figure. In Inventing George Washington, historian Edward G. Lengel shows how the late president and war hero continued to serve his nation on two distinct levels. The public Washington evolved into an eternal symbol as Father of His Country, while the private man remained at the periphery of the national vision always just out of reach for successive generations yearning to know him as never before. Both images, public and private, were vital to perceptions Americans had of their nation and themselves. Yet over time, as Lengel shows, the contrasting and simultaneous urges to deify Washington and to understand him as a man have produced tensions that have played out in every generation. As some exalted him, others sought to bring him down to earth, creating a series of competing mythologies that depicted Washington as every sort of human being imaginable. Inventing George Washington explores these representations, shedding new light on this national emblem, our nation itself, and who we are.

A bold new theory about the Sun Earth relationship, its role in history, and its potentially disastrous future.We are in the midst of one of the most massive, powerful, and relentless solar storms in history, reports science journalist and solar expert Lawrence Joseph, and a single, random blast from the Sun could well destroy our way of life at any time. Tracing the Sun's behavior and its influence on Earth from the most recent Ice Age to the present and connecting groundbreaking research in solar physics to biology, politics, and culture, Joseph alerts us to the tremendous vulnerability of our infrastructure and delivers the tools and strategies we need to outsmart the Sun and protect Earth's satellites and other vital systems from the coming solar apocalypse. Solar Cataclysm implores us to rethink our understanding of human history and redefine our relationship with the 4.57-billion-year-old thermonuclear behemoth in order to defend our future.The connection between human history and solar activity has gone largely untold until now. Carefully examining the 4.57-billion-year story of our relationship with the Sun, science reporter and bestselling author Lawrence Joseph demonstrates how nearly every aspect of earthly existence and human behavior has always been and continues to be susceptible to changes in the Sun the basis for his "Moody Sun Hypothesis." As we come to realize that the Sun is far more turbulent and explosive than imagined, we must also come to terms with the fact that our future is more vulnerable to the Sun than ever suspected.From the Sun's role in global climate change to its constant threat of catastrophic solar blasts, and from stories of solar activity causing rifts in religion in the Middle Ages to the way sunspots are messing with our moods and minds today, Solar Cataclysm examines the myriad ways the ever-changing Sun disrupts our personal lives, determines the course of history, and shapes our destiny.But this isn't a tale of doom. Our fates, collectively and individually, aren't tethered to the Sun's ups and downs. With captivating storytelling and witty prose, Joseph shows us how to draw on the tools and expertise including the very latest solar science research and technology advances, as well as human ingenuity and survival instincts to respond effectively to the Sun's threats and to shield ourselves and our atmosphere, satellite system, power grids, and nuclear power infrastructure from the Sun's impending assault.How did the Sun King, Louis XIV, ban sunspots for virtually all of his seventy-two-year reignWhat makes Stanford and Purdue University scientists so sure that the Sun is sending out secret, vitally important messages todaySmart and engaging, Solar Cataclysm guides us to a new, dynamic, life-affirming level of interconnectedness among self, planet, and sustaining star.

We all have moments we wish we could relive. We'd give anything to skid down the toboggan hills of our youth, to breathe in the smell of our children as babies, or to spend just one more minute with someone we've lost. Dear Photograph provides a way to link these memories from the past to the present, overlapping them to see how the daydreams of our memories collide with our current realities.The idea is simple: hold up a photograph from the past in front of the place where it was originally taken, take a second photograph, and add a sentence of dedication about what the photograph means to you. The results, however, are astounding, which is why millions have flocked to dearphotograph.com and thousands have submitted their own Dear Photographs.This stunning visual compilation includes more than 140 never-before-seen Dear Photographs, as well as a space for you to attach your own cherished photo. By turns nostalgic, charming, and poignant, Dear Photograph evokes childhood memories, laments difficult losses, and, above all, celebrates the universal nature of love.

With information on entertaining, etiquette, housekeeping, basic home repair, decorating, sex, and beauty, The Modern Girl's Guide to Life became a sensational bestseller as young women everywhere discovered this indispensable book covered everything they should know . . . but might not. Now, in this revised edition of the classic, style maven Jane Buckingham reveals more of the helpful tips and secrets that get passed down from generation to generation, but that many of us have somehow missed.Full of practical, definitive advice on the basics the day-to-day necessities like finding a bra that fits, balancing a checkbook, making a decent cup of coffee, and hemming a pair of pants The Modern Girl's Guide to Life, Revised Edition includes new topics such as: Social Media 101: where you should and shouldn't be online Online dating: should you, shouldn't you, and how you can find the right guy Sexting: dos and don'ts Online flash sales: Are you really savingTips and tricks for eating organic, shopping at farmers' markets, and juicing safely Updated recipes, including vegan and gluten-free How to find the exercise you won't skip out on doing Interview etiquette: everything from what to wear to what to say Updated financial section . . . and more! Modern Girl guru Jane Buckingham includes loads of savvy counsel to help us feel more refined, in charge, and together as we navigate the rocky terrain that is twenty-first-century womanhood.

The coeditor of the enormously popular Jewish Catalog "help[s] readers understand more fully the meaning of our holidays and thereby to observe these festivals . . . with a greater devotion and joy."--Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler