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New Books for August

The eagerly anticipated update to the bestselling first edition is here! Facebook's popularity is seemingly unstoppable. The site experienced a huge boom in registered users in the latter half of 2008. It was at that time that Facebook also underwent a radical facelift and introduced numerous changes. Packed with hundreds of screen shots, this anxiously awaited new edition presents you with a thorough update on all the exciting changes to Facebook's interface since the first edition hit the shelves a mere one year ago. Authored by two Facebook employees, Facebook For Dummies, 2nd Edition, features unique insight and insider knowledge of Facebook that can't be found anywhere else. You'll explore optimum ways to get familiar with Facebook, tips for representing yourself online, best practices for keeping connected, how to run a business on Facebook, and more. Walks you through creating a profile, navigating the interface, and setting up privacy features * Explains how to find and add friends, fill out your profile, add applications, and upload photos * Discusses ways to join a network or group or use Facebook as a scheduler * Addresses using Facebook to promote your business and buy ad space on Facebook. Put your best face forward and dive in to all the exciting new features that Facebook offers!
   
YouTube For Dummies takes the classic Dummies tact in helping tech novices get a handle on a popular technology that more tech-savvy audiences consider "simple." With so much content on YouTube getting media attention, more first-timers are jumping on the site and they need help. The book also helps the next step audience of users looking to add content to YouTube. Content includes: * Watching the Tube - includes getting your PC ready for YouTube viewing, finding video, signing up for an account, and creating favorites. * Loading Video to YouTube - covers the nuts and bolts of shooting video, transferring it to a PC, editing it, and sending it up to YouTube. * Bringing Along YouTube - covers the various ways you can use YouTube video in places other than on the site. Includes mobile YouTube and adding videos to your MySpace page or another Web site. * I Always Wanted To Direct - explores how to use YouTube's directors program to upload longer video, use the site for marketing, or launch your own videoblog.
   
Combat Team 28, one of the greatest units fielded in the history of the U.S. Marines, landed on the black sands of Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945. The unit, 4,500 men strong, plunged immediately into ferocious combat, and by the time the battled ended, 70 percent of the men in the team’s three assault battalions were killed or seriously wounded. The stories told here, many for the first time, will seem too cruel, too heartbreaking to be believed. As one veteran remarked, “Each day we learned a new way to die.” Major General Fred Haynes, then a young captain, is the last surviving office in CT 28 who was intimately involved in planning and coordinating all phases of the team’s fight on Iwo Jima. In this astonishing narrative, Haynes and James A. Warren recapture in riveting detail what the Marines experienced, drawing on a wealth of previously untapped documents, personal narratives, letters, and interviews with survivors to offer fresh interpretations of the fight for Suribachi, the iconic flag-raising photograph, and the nature of the campaign as a whole.
It was meant to be an adventure—a night alone on a remote Irish island. Archaeologist Sophie Malone never expected to find Celtic treasure or to end up in a fight for her life in a dark, desolate cave. Now, a year later, she's convinced answers to the mysteries of that night lie in Boston. Is the recent violence there connected to her night of terror? Who has the priceless gold artifacts that disappeared from the cave…and who is responsible for the whispers she heard in the dark?

Nearly killed in an explosion a month ago, Boston detective Cyrus "Scoop" Wisdom has recovered from his injuries. He's after the bomber—and he thinks it's another cop. But when Sophie unknowingly leads him to a retired officer's body amid symbols of ritual sacrifice, it's clear nobody's safe, and everyone's a suspect.

Tough and stubborn, Scoop is the best on the force at detecting lies…except maybe those of Sophie Malone. Together Sophie and Scoop face the greatest challenge of their lives: someone is using ancient rituals to commit modern-day murder—and the killing has only just begun.

   
The McCarrans and the Gallaghers, two military families, have been close for decades, ever since Anthony McCarran—now one of the army's most distinguished generals—became best friends with Jack Gallagher, a fellow West Pointer who was later killed in Vietnam. Now a new generation of soldiers faces combat, and Lt. Brian McCarran, the general's son, has returned from a harrowing tour in Iraq. Traumatized by wartime experiences he will not reveal, Brian depends on his lifelong friendship with Kate Gallagher, Jack's daughter, who is married to Brian's commanding officer in Iraq, Capt. Joe D'Abruzzo. But since coming home, D'Abruzzo also seems changed by the experiences he and Brian shared—he's become secretive and remote.

Tragedy strikes when Brian shoots and kills D'Abruzzo on their army post in Virginia. Brian pleads self-defense, claiming that D'Abruzzo, a black-belt martial artist, came to his quarters, accused him of interfering with his marriage, and attacked him. Kate supports Brian and says that her husband had become violent and abusive. But Brian and Kate have secrets of their own, and now Capt. Paul Terry, one of the army's most accomplished young lawyers, will defend Brian in a high-profile court-martial. Terry's co-counsel is Meg McCarran, Brian's sister, a brilliant and beautiful attorney who insists on leaving her practice in San Francisco to help save her brother. Before the case is over, Terry will become deeply entwined with Meg and the McCarrans—and learnthat families, like war, can break the sturdiest of souls.

   
The bestselling author of Mayflower revisits one of the most iconic and misunderstood stories of the American West.
   
Carina Fardelle holds the key to calming the rising tensions between the Federation and Imperial 'Verses. Daniel Haws has been enlisted to smuggle her to safety, but removing her from under the fiercely watchful eye of her evil father, the Supreme Commander, won't be easy. Born as adversaries into different ranks, and on the run for their lives, they now need each other to survive-by holding on to the only thing they have in common: a growing desire that is dangerous, irrestisible, and insatiable...
   
The deepest cave on earth was a prize that had remained unclaimed for centuries, long after every other ultimate discovery had been made: both poles by 1912, Everest in 1958, the Challenger Deep in 1961. In 1969 we even walked on the moon. And yet as late as 2000, the earth’s deepest cave—the supercave—remained undiscovered. This is the story of the men and women who risked everything to find it, earning their place in history beside the likes of Peary, Amundsen, Hillary, and Armstrong.
 
In 2004, two great scientist-explorers are attempting to find the bottom of the world. Bold, heroic American Bill Stone is committed to the vast Cheve Cave, located in southern Mexico and deadly even by supercave standards. On the other side of the globe, legendary Ukrainian explorer Alexander Klimchouk—Stone’s polar opposite in temperament and style, but every bit his equal in scientific expertise, physical bravery, and sheer determination—has targeted Krubera, a freezing nightmare of a supercave in the Republic of Georgia, where underground dangers are compounded by the horrors of separatist war in this former Soviet republic.
   
Nine years ago, Richard Allen fled England and his controlling father. Determined to live his own life, he took to the sea and settled in the Caribbean, joining a band of treasure-hunting pirates and adopting the persona of a carefree, seductive Frenchman named Jean Paul to guard the secrets of his past. When he slips back into England to carry out an urgent task, Richard becomes infatuated with a married woman, Georgina Malory. But his reckless attempt to woo Georgina at a masked ball turns out to be the worst mistake of his life because it brings him face-to-face with another beautiful woman.

Thrilled that her solicitors have finally come up with a way to free her from her betrothal contract to the Earl of Manford’s son who abandoned her years ago, heiress Julia Miller is ready for the marriage mart and hopes to find that perfect someone at her friend Georgina’s ball. Charmed by a masked Frenchman who gives her her first kiss, she can’t help but pursue this mysterious man — until she makes a shocking discovery. Now, to avoid falling into a ruthless nobleman’s trap, Julia must enter a risky, intimate charade with a man she never believed she could love.
   
The Above the Line Series follows two dedicated Hollywood producers as they seek to transform the culture through the power of film.

In Take Four, after Chase Ryan returns to his family and a job in his hometown, filmmakers Keith Ellison and Dayne Matthews finally ink a deal to have the nation's top young actor star in their current film. But at the same time, the actor takes a very public fall that threatens his reputation among his fan base. Meanwhile, healing happens for Andi Ellison in her relationship with God, her family, and those she loves, but is it too late? The new producers find they must truly act as missionaries in order to help save the film, their families, and the young movie star.

Breakthroughs take place that the public will never know about, as the possibility of saving the world through film is finally a very real possibility.|The Above the Line Series follows two dedicated Hollywood producers as they seek to transform the culture through the power of film.

In Take Four, after Chase Ryan returns to his family and a job in his hometown, filmmakers Keith Ellison and Dayne Matthews finally ink a deal to have the nation's top young actor star in their current film. But at the same time, the actor takes a very public fall that threatens his reputation among his fan base. Meanwhile, healing happens for Andi Ellison in her relationship with God, her family, and those she loves, but is it too late? The new producers find they must truly act as missionaries in order to help save the film, their families, and the young movie star.

Breakthroughs take place that the public will never know about, as the possibility of saving the world through film is finally a very real possibility.

   
The national bestselling author of "Biggest Brother" presents an up-close-and-personal story of the Alamo Scouts in the Pacific during World War II.
   
He knows everything about you—including the first place you’ll hide.
 
On a warm summer night in one of Boston’s working-class neighborhoods, an unthinkable crime has been committed: Four members of a family have been brutally murdered. The father—and possible suspect—now lies clinging to life in the ICU. Murder-suicide? Or something worse? Veteran police detective D. D. Warren is certain of only one thing: There’s more to this case than meets the eye.

Danielle Burton is a survivor, a dedicated nurse whose passion is to help children at a locked-down pediatric psych ward. But she remains haunted by a family tragedy that shattered her life nearly twenty-five years ago. The dark anniversary is approaching, and when D. D. Warren and her partner show up at the facility, Danielle immediately realizes: It has started again.

A devoted mother, Victoria Oliver has a hard time remembering what normalcy is like. But she will do anything to ensure that her troubled son has some semblance of a childhood. She will love him no matter what. Nurture him. Keep him safe. Protect him. Even when the threat comes from within her own house. 

In New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner’s most compelling work of suspense to date, the lives of these three women unfold and connect in unexpected ways, as sins from the past emerge—and stunning secrets reveal just how tightly blood ties can bind. Sometimes the most devastating crimes are the ones closest to home.
   
A plan to destroy America, a hundred years in the making, is about to be unleashed . . . can it be stopped?

There is a powerful technique called the Overton Window that can shape our lives, our laws, and our future. It works by manipulating public perception so that ideas previously thought of as radical begin to seem acceptable over time. Move the Window and you change the debate. Change the debate and you change the country.

For Noah Gardner, a twentysomething public relations executive, it’s safe to say that political theory is the furthest thing from his mind. Smart, single, handsome, and insulated from the world’s problems by the wealth and power of his father, Noah is far more concerned about the future of his social life than the future of his country.

But all of that changes when Noah meets Molly Ross, a woman who is consumed by the knowledge that the America we know is about to be lost forever. She and her group of patriots have vowed to remember the past and fight for the future—but Noah, convinced they’re just misguided conspiracy-theorists, isn’t interested in lending his considerable skills to their cause.

And then the world changes.

An unprecedented attack on U.S. soil shakes the country to the core and puts into motion a frightening plan, decades in the making, to transform America and demonize all those who stand in the way. Amidst the chaos, many don’t know the difference between conspiracy theory and conspiracy fact—or, more important, which side to fight for.

But for Noah, the choice is clear: Exposing the plan, and revealing the conspirators behind it, is the only way to save both the woman he loves and the individual freedoms he once took for granted.

After five back-to-back #1 New York Times bestsellers, national radio and Fox News television host Glenn Beck has delivered a ripped-from-the-headlines thriller that seamlessly weaves together American history, frightening facts about our present condition, and a heart-stopping plot. The Overton Window will educate, enlighten, and, most important, entertain—with twists and revelations no one will see coming.

   
Deep below the deceptively beautiful waters of the Atlantic Ocean, guarded by hundreds of dolphins, lie the astonishing remains of a mysterious lost city much like the legendary Atlantis.
While mapping the ancient underwater metropolis of Marinth, marine architect Hannah Bryson makes a shocking discovery: She may have finally uncovered the truth about the once-glorious city’s mysterious demise. Marinth’s sudden disappearance has confounded scientists for years, but now, with the revelation of a key artifact, Hannah realizes that the long-buried city’s explosive secret could have dire consequences for the modern-day world.
But she isn’t the only one who realizes it. The artifact is hijacked, and Hannah stands alone between a power-hungry enemy and widespread destruction. Willing to form whatever alliance is necessary to regain control of this potentially world-changing weapon, Hannah joins forces with Nicholas Kirov, a loose cannon from her past who is now her best hope for survival. Together they will race to unravel Marinth’s last great secret in order to prevent a catastrophe of global proportions. And before the lethal game is over, Hannah will realize that nothing and no one is what she expected, not even the dolphins, who know so much more than anyone could imagine.
Shadow Zone is fast-paced and cutting edge. Iris Johansen and Roy Johansen have raised the bar again in this blood-pumping thrill ride.
   

New DVD's for August

Sahara director Breck Eisner teams with screenwriters Ray Wright (Pulse) and Scott Kosar (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) to give George A. Romero's underrated 1973 shocker a shiny new makeover in this update starring Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell. Perform a Google search on "small-town America," and eventually you'll stumble across Ogden Marsh, a picturesque hamlet situated a safe distance from the nearest big city, and full of friendly faces. The citizens of Ogden Marsh are happy, albeit unremarkable people, but they're about to discover just how fragile their warm slice of the American Dream really is. When a mysterious toxin transforms the locals into murderous maniacs, it's up to Sheriff David Dutton (Olyphant) to find out why a man who was once an upstanding citizen would attempt to massacre the local youth baseball team, and a caring father would burn his beloved family alive. Within hours the town has descended into total chaos, and the government has ordered it quarantined. Anyone who attempts to escape will be shot on sight, whether they're infected or not. Realizing that their only hope for survival is to fight through the madness that has consumed their once-quiet town, Sheriff Dutton, his pregnant wife, Judy (Mitchell), his deputy Russell (Joe Anderson), and frightened medical center assistant Becca (Danielle Panabaker) wage an epic struggle to discover the source of this malevolent scourge while fending off their infected friends and neighbors. Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
 
Disappointed at the way their lives have turned out, four longtime friends reunite at the ski resort where they used to party and find themselves transported back to the year 1986 by a magical jacuzzi. Adam (John Cusack), Lou (Rob Corddry), Nick (Craig Robinson), and Jacob (Clark Duke) have all seen better days; Adam's and Nick's love lives are in the dumps, Lou is clinging to his hard-partying past, and video-game addict Jacob can't even muster the courage to walk outside. A fun stay at the ski resort where the gang made some of their best memories seems like just the thing to cheer everyone up, but after a night of heavy drinking in the hot tub, the four friends wake up to find they're about to live through the '80s a second time. Determined not to make the same mistakes twice, Adam, Lou, Nick, and Jacob decide to take full advantage of the unique opportunity presented to them, and create the lives they've always wanted. Chevy Chase, Crispin Glover, and Lizzy Caplan co-star. Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
 
This adaptation of Rick Riordan's remarkably popular fantasy book series tells the tale of accident-prone teenager Percy (Logan Lerman) discovers he's actually a demi-God, the son of Poseidon, and he is needed when Zeus' lightning is stolen. Percy must master his newfound skills in order to prevent a war between the Gods that could devastate the entire world. Directed by Chris Columbus. Co-starring Uma Thurman, Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean. Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
 
Ice Road Truckers: The Most Dangerous Episodes
 
Pawn Stars: Season One
 
Hapless bounty hunter Milo Boyd (Gerard Butler) jumps for joy at the prospect of tracking down his bail-skipping ex-wife Nicole Hurley (Jennifer Aniston), but gets a hard dose of reality when the job proves tougher than anticipated. Every time Milo gets close to resourceful reporter Nicole, she gives him the slip. A high-profile murder has been committed, and Nicole is determined to stay out of jail long enough to crack the case. And she must be getting close, because now someone is trying to take them both out. They may not have been able to make marriage work, but if Milo and Nicole can just stay alive long enough to solve the murder, they might discover they're not such a bad team after all. Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
 

 

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