Ever After: Diana and the Life She Led

Book Description

Overnight, Diana Spencer emerged from relative obscurity to being the most famous-and most photographed-woman in the world. By all appearances, her marriage to Prince Charles was a Cinderella story come to life. Everyone knows how the fairy tale ended, but few people know that Diana's debut into the House of Windsor was as carefully manipulated as her public persona-and no one could have imagined what it would ultimately cost her.Drawing from extensive research and exclusive interviews, acclaimed biographer Anne Edwards unveils the portrait of an enigmatic legend to give us never-before-revealed details of Diana's life; of her upbringing in a cold, autocratic family; of her search for love; of her tumultuous marriage with the Prince of Wales; and of an iconic Princess who was as powerful a force as the Royal Family had ever encountered. Anne Edwards paints an unforgettable portrait of a fairy-tale heroine who defied convention to earn the love and admiration of the entire world.AUTHORBIO: ANNE EDWARDS, who lived in London for many years and has close friends within royal circles, is the author of many bestselling biographies, including Matriarch: Queen Mary and the House of Windsor and Royal Sisters: Elizabeth and Margaret. She is known for her meticulous research and ability to portray her subjects with passion and sympathy. She has also written biographies of Vivien Leigh, Margaret Mitchell, Katharine Hepburn, and Sonya, Countess Tolstoy.

Customer Reviews:

Ever After: Diana and the Life She Led.......2006-11-14

Enjoy reading books, in general, of people who actually lived. Enjoy reading
of Diana and her life by respectable, intelligent authors who actually know what they are trying to have us know of. Enjoyed it immensely.

Engaging, moving and full of interesting detail........2006-08-04

I'm currently enrolled in a course on writing biographies, taught by Anne Edwards at the UCLA Extension Program. On the first day of the course the author brought an assorted copies of some of the 24 books that she's written over the years and we were each asked to choose one to read during the ten-week course. I read a lot of biographies but I had never yet read one of Anne's. Though I am a bit of a self-confessed Anglophile, "Ever After, Diana and the Life she Led" wouldn't have naturally been my first choice. Most of the others were already taken however, and Anne suggested that I might enjoy reading this one.

The tragic death of Princess Diana is one of those moments in one's life where were one knows exactly the instant that one heard the heartbreaking news.

I'm quite pleased indeed that this was the one she suggested. I found Edwards writing style very engaging and though cliché or not, I found the book very difficult to put down. I enjoyed it immensely. Edwards has a way of recreating the feeling of the moment exactly as when it occurred. She has a talent of bringing in all of the senses so that you really feel that you are there, standing in the moment. "Park House, Diana's home, was a ten-bedroom Victorian country house with staff cottages, stables and a tennis court. Although it was four miles inland, easterly winds brought the scent of salt to remind the occupants of the area's seafaring history."

I found it thoroughly enjoyable, so much so, that I've decided to order a number of Edwards other books from here on Amazon.

I love IT!.......2006-02-28

I also wrote a research project on Princess Diana, and i used this book. It was so helpful and i really learned a lot. All of the other books i had read, by her butler and things, were more about THEIR life, not Diana's.

Helpful in understanding her life.......2002-12-01

If you love Diana, you will love this book. I did a research paper on Diana, and this book was great help. The discriptions of every event in the book is amazing. I could not put the book down.

Edwards reveals unknown details about the life Diana Spencer.......2002-03-27

Anne Edwards does an exquisite job at portraying the life of Princess Diana. This novel takes the reader through Diana's rough childhood, family background, marriage to Prince Charles, public work, divorce and her death in 1997. The book takes the reader by surprise because many people saw Diana's life as a fairytale, but learn through the novel that Diana's life was not as perfect as it seemed to be. Readers will learn a great deal about the life story of Princess Diana. This novel is appropriate for young adults to grownup.

Average customer rating:

Ever After: Diana and the Life She Led
Anne Edwards
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTPA16

Average customer rating:

Ever After: Diana and the Life She Led
Anne Edwards
Manufacturer: St Martins Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000KE5WV8

Book Description

Applying the vivid metaphor of "Fire on Ice", author Nelson "Chris" Stokes begins his account of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team, citing its spectacular crash at the 1988 Calgary Olympics to its triumphs across world competition. Once a novelty portrayed in the motion picture Cool Runnings, the team has become a phenomenon, quite unlike any other sporting enterprise, prompting journalists and sports historians to rave about its indomitable spirit, its uncanny survival, its crowd-pleasing collective personae.

All this is recorded in Cool Runnings and Beyond: The Story of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Team where team member Stokes describes how, once kindled, this little flame called Jamaica Bobsleigh refused to sputter, but flared like its Olympic counterpart. First dismissed as a gimmick when it burst on the scene at the Calgary Games, Jamaica Bobsleigh began to truly compete, and the world began taking measure.

These islanders from the tropics proved they could race on ice and if given enough practice, funds, and support, they might become medal contenders.

Now president of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Federation, Chris Stokes provides two narratives from his experience as an Olympian and a member of the world bobsleighing community. One details the personalities, those grinding training regimens, and the raw hopes and fears, disasters and determination found behind the familiar media images. Drawing from his experience within the fluid and dynamic demands of marketing Jamaica Bobsleigh, Chris also provides lessons for fundraising, building a vibrant and visionary business, and for those who would seek personal growth in context of teamwork.

Book Description

Visual Delights II covers many aspects of popular and visual culture in the late Victorian and early Edwardian periods. Contributors consider topics as diverse as 19th-century circus performers, early cinema exhibition practice, "penny dreadfuls," lantern culture, early color experiments, and popular photography. Lavishly illustrated, this interdisciplinary book provides a rich visual resource for the further study of 19th-century visual culture and performance practice.

GURPS Egypt: Tombs, Temples, Trouble (GURPS: Generic Universal Role Playing System)
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Yet Another Winner from S J Games

GURPS Egypt: Tombs, Temples, Trouble (GURPS: Generic Universal Role Playing System)
Thomas M. Kane
Manufacturer: STEVE JACKSON GAMES
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
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GURPS Middle Ages 1

GURPS Atlantis

ASIN: 1556343426

Customer Reviews:

Yet Another Winner from S J Games.......2000-06-23

This is another comprehensive worldbook from SJ Games. It's designed for GURPS, but it could be used by ANYONE wanting to design an Egypt-based RPG. In fact, it should be useful to fiction writers wishing to set fiction in ancient Egypt--just throw out the game statistics and use the chapters on history and culture.

It's in chapters such as these that SJGames supplements shine. A richness of detail backed by solid research put at the fingertips of any GM the basic and not-so-basic knowledge that turn a generic adventure into a vivid, fulfilling story set against a rich backdrop.

Egypt is more than pyramids and mummies, and this book proves it. You want to know about the historical rulers? The details of the religion--and how it changed over time? The technologies we understand (and those we don't)? It's all here.

An egyptologist might find this book lacking; a gamer will probably find more than she needs.

Worth every penny.

Bigger Isn't Always Better: The New Mindset for Real Business Growth
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Bigger Isn't Always Better

How growth-oriented business goals can kill the golden goose

What is your mindset?

Bigger Isn't Always Better: The New Mindset for Real Business Growth
Robert M. Tomasko
Manufacturer: AMACOM/American Management Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Strategy & Competition | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big

Alpha Dogs: How Your Small Business can become a Leader of the Pack

The Power to Predict: How Real Time Businesses Anticipate Customer Needs, Create Opportunities, and Beat the Competition

Lucky or Smart?: Secrets to an Entrepreneurial Life

Peripheral Vision: Detecting the Weak Signals That Will Make or Break Your Company

ASIN: 0814408664

Book Description

When it comes to business growth, bigger is not always better. The key to achieving growth is to change the way we think about it. Genuine growth has more to do with reaching maximum potential than reaching maximum size. Based on ten years of research and dozens of personal interviews by the author, Bigger Isn't Always Better identifies seven key habits of mind that lead to real growth, and shows, through many examples, how they have been applied successfully. Examples include Darcy Williams at Nike, who championed a range of products for women that did not fit into the established market segments (men) of her employer; Bill Greenwood of Burlington Northern, who found a way to turn truckers, his railroad's most difficult competitors, into its best customers; Al Bru, who eliminated trans fats from Pepsico's Frito-Lay snack foods and got health-conscious consumers to embrace the products; and Jane Friedman, HarperCollins publisher, who was determined to give her company a brand identity and reduce its dependence on a few blockbuster books. Combining real-life stories and insightful analysis, Bigger Isn't Always Better shows how to move an organization forward -- to grow smarter, not fatter.

Customer Reviews:

Bigger Isn't Always Better.......2007-07-15

Often in business, we spend so much time and effort on making our business bigger, adding new products, and focusing on stock market prices that we forget to ask ourselves if this growth is actually helping our business or if it is slowly draining our resources until we are no longer productive.

Bigger Isn't Always Better examines this issue and suggests that growth is not necessarily about getting bigger. Bigness is not sustainable. Instead, the author suggests that business look at growth as moving forward and continuously progressing. This kind of growth is purposeful, thoughtfully planned with the intention of bettering the business' products and customer services.

There are quite a few gems in this book. I found the descriptions of the 21 mind bugs particularly useful. Mind bugs are common ways that we think and things that we tell ourselves that distort reality and act as hurdles to healthy growth. I also thought that the section "Are You a Fixer or a Grower?" was quite enlightening. This section analyses what drives each of these personality types and how they correspond with very different business strategies.

How growth-oriented business goals can kill the golden goose.......2006-04-13

Robert M. Tomasko's BIGGER ISN'T ALWAYS BETTER: THE NEW MINDSET FOR BUSINESS GROWTH draws some important distinctions between growth and expansion. While increased size is desirable, too often companies grow too quickly and many may ultimately see their demise in their very growth-oriented goals. Real growth lines in progress and knowing how to link success to strategic plans and logical organizational changes - the types of changes BIGGER ISN'T ALWAYS BETTER covers in chapters which probe growth cycles, judgement calls, and knowing how to access opportunity for its real-world applications.

What is your mindset?.......2006-02-28

What we have in this volume is a brilliant explanation of what "real business growth" is, and, how to achieve and then sustain it. Tomasko suggests seven characteristics which "growers" share. They are guided and informed by a mindset which recognizes that real growth "is about reaching full potential, not maximum size. It means progress, not excess; it is fueled by imagination, not expansion." He devotes a separate chapter to each of the seven common characteristics. In Part 1, he describes what growth is and isn't, then in Part 2, he explains what growers do. They know what they need to know and where to locate it. They know what they want to achieve and tell the truth when pursuing it. They initiate creative attention to generate and sustain forward movement, meanwhile winning hearts and minds of others involved. They master what Tomasko characterizes as "momentum with bounce." They know when to let go, agreeing with Jason Jennings that "if it's DOA, bury it." And they "share the wealth" when collaborative effort achieves the given objectives.

The more "growers" there are within a given enterprise, the more likely that it will achieve "real business growth." Hence the importance of recognizing and supporting them, of course, but also doing so with regard to prospective "growers" as well. Every effort should be made to accelerate their development. When paraphrasing one of the exemplary growers, psychologist Martin Seligman, Tomasko observes that "business is not just about fixing what is broken. It is about taking what is best in an enterprise and nurturing its further development. Leading this kind of growth requires a very different mentality from that needed to manage ongoing activities. The best growth champions are not the people who are in charge of today's successful organizations. What makes best sense for sustaining the status quo is often irrelevant or counterproductive for surpassing it." When Reginald Jones selected his successor as GE's next CEO, he urged Jack Welch to "Blow it up!"

While re-reading this book, as is my custom, I highlighted key passages. In this instance more than 100 which caught my eye. Here are two representative excerpts.

When knowing where to look for growth opportunities: "Blinders from existing business models or getting caught up in the hot concept (convergence, deregulation, Internet-means-that-everything-is-different, and so on) will also limit our ability to see the market clearly. When we see something new, we seldom stop to appreciate it for what it is. Instead, evolution seems to have trained us -- hard-wired our brains -- to slot things into categories or explanations that are derived from our past experiences. In pigeonholing things this way, wee run the risk of filtering out what it is that makes the novel news." (page 119)

However, "As Picasso once noted: `Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.' The trick is to plan the movement from old to new in a way that does not lead to mindless destruction and chaos. This means starting out with the grower's clear idea of somewhere better to end up, and knowing what is wanted with as much clarity as what is not wanted. That's how real growth happens. This kind of growth, of course, has little to do with getting better or prevailing over others." (page 238)

In this book, Tomasko shares brilliant insights in combination with practical recommendations which can help his reader to develop and then sustain a new mindset, "an internal logic system, the model that you carry around in your head." With meticulous care, Tomasko explains how and why a mindset gives birth to our beliefs and assumptions, how it determines what facts we notice and what we make of them. "And even more important, it determines what [we] do as a result." I continue to be amazed by those decision-makers whose mindset causes them to follow the same course of action which had repeatedly failed before... and then expect different results. That doesn't make any sense, does it?

Book Description

While this, the second volume of the Cosmic Trigger series, continues along the path set by the original "Cosmic Trigger I--Final Secret of the Illuminati," it also stands solidly on its own. Any reader with an open mind and a sense of humor cannot help but be entertained and enlightened while following Wilson's explorations into such subjects as the future of cyberspace; the peculiarities of Irish jurisprudence; links among the Mafia, the CIA and the Catholic Church; anal-eroticism in The White House; the Dog Castrator of Palm Springs; and many more observations from his infinitely fertile brain. Second Revised Edition!

Customer Reviews:

Hail The Master Of Knowledge - Wilson Has Done It Again.......2006-07-02

Wilson has done it again. from james joyce to leary. just when icke was starting to wake up to some of these things...

Hail eris. all hail discordia... and knowledge...

A decent follow-up, but nothing outstanding.......2003-08-13

R.A. Wilson's "Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati" was a fascinating look at the events leading up to the writing of the classic Illuminatus! Trilogy. An intriguing look at relativism in literature and reality, the first Cosmic Trigger delightfully wove acid, Uncle Al, and conspiracy theories into a head-trip of "cosmic" proportions. Wilson's follow-up, unfortunately, fails to break any new ground.

Cosmic Trigger II is an interesting little book, and fun to read in these times of Bush II (Son of Huge Berserk Rebel Warthog? Or Insane Anglo Warlord reborn?). Wilson delves into his childhood, his education, his time in Ireland, his visit to communist East Germany, and yet another fold in his conspiracies- the Knights of Malta and their connections to fascists, the Mob, and the Republican Party.

All in all, CT II is a fun read, but nothing exceptional. If you spy a cheap copy in a used book bin, pick it up for a morning read, but otherwise don't bother.

George Burns was right!.......2002-08-01

It's funny how Robert Anton Wilson's chosen subject matter has effectively invalidated criticism of his books. One of his central themes is the mistrust of authority and "experts". Also, much of the chapters in any of his book are dedicated to intentionally misleading the reader in order to force said reader into performing the heinous task of thinking for themselves.

Since this is the case, how can we trust any of the reviews of his work? All of these are written by people who have read at least one of his books, and probably more. Are these people railing against his work actually serious in their hatred? Do the people praising it actually believe in what they're saying?

I'm going to go on record and say that this is probably the most lucid and thought out of his non-fiction books.

But to illustrate the point, why did I only rate it two stars? Why not one? Why not five? What does George Burns have to do with anything?

Only recommended if you can stomach the thought of reality laughing behind your back.

Ever wonder where conspiracies come from?.......2002-04-23

Building on the revelations that Robert Anton Wilson reveals in his first book of this series, Wilson hits a home run with the second book. The writing becomes clearer and Wilson does an excellent job of intertwining at least 5 story lines at once. One of these lines is an autobiographical tale which may help a slighty confused reader of the first book to truly understand the changes that occurred in RAW from his experimentation.

Along the way, the book dives deep into the Mafia, the CIA, the Vatican, the Masons and a host of other topics. Wilson expertly describes his voyage through uncovering a vast web of a conspiracy that unfolds right in front of him. Wilson is a master of his craft and a leading thinker in the psychological space. This book is by far the best of the series and stands alone quite well. For a reader new to Wilson, this is a good starting point. For a fan, this is definitely a must have.

Ignite Your Soul.......2002-02-26

Can a book rearrange the polarity of your conscious mind, stimulate dosing neurons into excitation, and spur you into understanding "reality." What about put a smile on your face every step of the way.

There has never been anyone like Robert Anton Wilson, cosmic jester/philosopher extraordinaire who has generously expanded more minds through the years than most so-called teachers of higher learning. "Higher Learning" through the RAW method produces a frightening, staggering number of people who end up thinking for themselves and - this part's really scary - actually start enjoying their lives.

How wonderful.

COSMIC TRIGGER: VOLUME II, DOWN TO EARTH
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COSMIC TRIGGER: VOLUME II, DOWN TO EARTH
Robert A. Wilson
Manufacturer: New Falcon Publications, 1991
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000KNYUHG

Book Description

Post-Mao market reforms in China have led to a massive migration of rural peasants toward the cities. Officially denied residency in the cities, the over 80 million members of this "floating population" provide labor for the economic boom in urban areas but are largely denied government benefits that city residents receive. In an incisive and original study that goes against the grain of much of the current discussion on citizenship, Dorothy J. Solinger challenges the notion that markets necessarily promote rights and legal equality in any direct or linear fashion.

Customer Reviews:

Well-researched and Original.......2003-07-11

The floating population in China is a relatively new phenomenon, and this book contributes much to the literature, which has previously been most accessible in academic journals. The only thing holding me back from giving it 5 stars is its publication date...one year before the census in China. Updated statistics would be much appreciated, and are now available to Chinese scholars.

Thought-provoking.......1999-05-07

Dorothy Solinger's book is more than just an intelligent and well researched document about peasant migration in China today - she also offers a sympathetic and personal angle to the subject through accounts of her many personal interviews with the migrants themselves, as well as excerpts from primary sources. A thoroughly challenging read that is a must for anyone interested in the relationship between China's floating population, the state and society.

Book Description

* Draws on experiences from the US, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and France to offer a revolutionary new agenda for wildland management and "rewilding" of lost habitats

* Written in an engaging and easy-to-read style for a range of nature enthusiasts, students, and conservation and land management professionals

* Full color maps and photographs

After decades of operating off-the-back-foot and protecting and conserving nature perceived as under threat, conservationists are becoming proactive and creative in the face of habitat loss, agricultural intensification and climate change. "Beyond Conservation" offers a revolutionary agenda for both managing existing wildlands in Britain and for expanding and connecting such lands. Central to this strategy is the imperative to "rewild" or restore and repair damaged habitat and ecosystems, promote existing biodiversity and reintroduce vanished plant and animal species, while working to reconcile human needs and livelihoods and the needs of nature.

Customer Reviews:

British wildlands management issues revealed.......2006-04-23

Peter Taylor's BEYOND CONSERVATION: A WILDLAND STRATEGY draws some important connections between conservation and land management issues. It focuses on managing existing wildlands in Britain and discusses the need to restore and repair damaged ecosystems, blending social, wildlife management and spiritual insights into the mix. In focussing on and highlighting specific management projects in different regions of the country, BEYOND CONSERVATION offers many insights on rebuilding ambitions.

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