Relationships

The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate

Unhappiness in marriage often has a simple root cause: we speak different love languages, believes Dr. Gary Chapman. While working as a marriage counselor for more than 30 years, he identified five love languages: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch. In a friendly, often humorous style, he unpacks each one. Some husbands or wives may crave focused attention; another needs regular praise. Gifts are highly important to one spouse, while another sees fixing a leaky faucet, ironing a shirt, or cooking a meal as filling their "love tank." Some partners might find physical touch makes them feel valued: holding hands, giving back rubs, and sexual contact. Chapman illustrates each love language with real-life examples from his counseling practice.

How do you discover your spouse's - and your own - love language? Chapman's short questionnaires are one of several ways to find out. Throughout the book, he also includes application questions that can be answered more extensively in the beautifully detailed companion leather journal (an exclusive Amazon.com set). Each section of the journal corresponds with a chapter from the book, offering opportunities for deeper reflection on your marriage.

Although some readers may find choosing to love a spouse that they no longer even like -hoping the feelings of affection will follow later- a difficult concept to swallow, Chapman promises that the results will be worth the effort. "Love is a choice," says Chapman. "And either partner can start the process today." --Cindy Crosby. This text refers to the Amazon.com Exclusive Journal & Paperback Book Set.

How to Win Friends & Influence People

This grandfather of all people-skills books was first published in 1937. It was an overnight hit, eventually selling 15 million copies. How to Win Friends and Influence People is just as useful today as it was when it was first published, because Dale Carnegie had an understanding of human nature that will never be outdated. Financial success, Carnegie believed, is due 15 percent to professional knowledge and 85 percent to "the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people." He teaches these skills through underlying principles of dealing with people so that they feel important and appreciated. He also emphasizes fundamental techniques for handling people without making them feel manipulated. Carnegie says you can make someone want to do what you want them to by seeing the situation from the other person's point of view and "arousing in the other person an eager want." You learn how to make people like you, win people over to your way of thinking, and change people without causing offense or arousing resentment. For instance, "let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers," and "talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person." Carnegie illustrates his points with anecdotes of historical figures, leaders of the business world, and everyday folks. --Joan Price

YOU CAN GO AFTER THE JOB YOU WANT...AND GET IT! YOU CAN TAKE THE JOB YOU HAVE...AND IMPROVE IT! YOU CAN TAKE ANY SITUATION YOU'RE IN...AND MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU!

For more than sixty years the rock-solid, time-tested advice in this book has carried thousands of now famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives.

Now this previously revised and updated bestseller is available in trade paperback for the first time to help you achieve your maximum potential throughout the next century! Learn:

* THREE FUNDAMENTAL TECHNIQUES IN HANDLING PEOPLE

* THE SIX WAYS TO MAKE PEOPLE LIKE YOU

* THE TWELVE WAYS TO WIN PEOPLE TO YOUR WAY OF THINKING

* THE NINE WAYS TO CHANGE PEOPLE WITHOUT AROUSING RESENTMENT

Getting the Love You Want, 20th Anniversary Edition: A Guide for Couples

When Harville Hendrix writes about relationships, he discusses them not just as an educator and a therapist, but as a man who has himself been through a failed marriage. Hendrix felt the sting of his divorce intensely because he believed it signaled not only his failure as a husband but also his failure as a couples counselor. Investigating why his marriage dissolved led him to start looking into the psychology of love. Marriage, he ultimately discovered, is the "practice of becoming passionate friends."

As a result of his research, Hendrix created a therapy he calls Imago Relationship Therapy. In it, he combines what he's learned in a number of disciplines, including the behavioral sciences, depth psychology, cognitive therapy, and Gestalt therapy, to name just a few. He expounds upon this approach in Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples. His purpose in writing the book, he says, is "to share with you what I have learned about the psychology of love relationships, and to help you transform your relationship into a lasting source of love and companionship."

Divided into three sections, the book covers "The Unconscious Marriage," which details a marriage in which the remaining desires and behavior of childhood interfere with the current relationship; "The Conscious Marriage," which shows a marriage that fulfils those childhood needs in a positive manner; and a 10-week "course in relationship therapy, " which gives detailed exercises for you and your partner to follow in order to learn how to "replace confrontation and criticism ... with a healing process of mutual growth and support." The text is occasionally dry and technical; however, the information provided is valuable, the case studies are interesting, and the exercises are revealing and helpful. By utilizing his program, Hendrix hopes you too will be able to solve your marital difficulties without the expense of a therapist. --Jenny Brown

How Not to Look Old: Fast and Effortless Ways to Look 10 Years Younger, 10 Pounds Lighter, 10 Times Better

Forget getting older gracefully--This is the beauty and style bible every woman has been waiting for!HOW NOT TO LOOK OLD is the first--ever cheat sheet of to-dos and fast fixes that pay-off big time--all from Charla and her friends, the best hair pros, makeup artists, designers, dermatologists, cosmetic dentists and personal shoppers in the biz. Packed with eye-opening details on hair color, brows, lipstick, wrinkle-erasers, jeans, shapewear, jewelry, heels, and more, the book speaks to every woman: from low maintenance types who don't want to spend a fortune or tons of time on her looks to high maintenance women who believe in looking fabulous at any price. There's also too-old vs. just-right before and after photos, celebrity examples of good and bad style, shopping lists of Charla's brilliant buys in fashion and beauty products, coveted addresses of "Where the top beauty pros go," fun sidebars--and more.

Known to national audiences from her ten years on NBC's Today show, style expert Charla Krupp dishes out her secrets in this "ultimate" to-do list for looking hip and fabulous -- no matter what your age.

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk is an excellent communication tool kit based on a series of workshops developed by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. Faber and Mazlish (coauthors of Siblings Without Rivalry) provide a step-by-step approach to improving relationships in your house. The "Reminder" pages, helpful cartoon illustrations, and excellent exercises will improve your ability as a parent to talk and problem-solve with your children. The book can be used alone or in parenting groups, and the solid tools provided are appropriate for kids of all ages.

You Can Stop Fighting With Your Chidren!

Here is the bestselling book that will give you the know–how you need to be more effective with your children and more supportive of yourself. Enthusiastically praised by parents and professionals around the world, the down–to–earth, respectful approach of Faber and Mazlish makes relationships with children of all ages less stressful and more rewarding.

Their methods of communication, illustrated with delightful cartoons showing the skills in action, offer innovative ways to solve common problems.

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High

The New York Times Bestseller!

Learn how to keep your cool and get the results you want when emotions flare.

When stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong, you have three choices: Avoid a crucial conversation and suffer the consequences; handle the conversation badly and suffer the consequences; or read Crucial Conversations and discover how to communicate best when it matters most. Crucial Conversations gives you the tools you need to step up to life's most difficult and important conversations, say what's on your mind, and achieve the positive resolutions you want. You'll learn how to:

• Prepare for high-impact situations with a six-minute mastery technique
• Make it safe to talk about almost anything
• Be persuasive, not abrasive
• Keep listening when others blow up or clam up
• Turn crucial conversations into the action and results you want

Whether they take place at work or at home, with your neighbors or your spouse, crucial conversations can have a profound impact on your career, your happiness, and your future. With the skills you learn in this book, you'll never have to worry about the outcome of a crucial conversation again.

Crucial Conversations offers readers a proven seven-point strategy for achieving their goals in all those emotionally, psychologically, or legally charged situations that can arise in their professional and personal lives.

The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Are you just another AFC ("average frustrated chump") trying to meet an HB ("hot babe")? How would you like to "full-close" with a Penthouse Pet of the Year? The answers, my friend, are in Neil Strauss's entertaining book The Game. Strauss was a self-described chick repellant--complete with large, bumpy nose, small, beady eyes, glasses, balding head, and, worst of all, painful shyness around women. He felt like "half a man." That is, until a book editor asked him to investigate the community of pickup artists. Strauss's life was transformed. He spent two years bedding some fine chiquitas and studying with some of the North America's most suave gents--including the best of them all, the God of the pickup "community," a man named Mystery.

Mystery is an aspiring Toronto magician who charges $2,250 for a weekend pickup workshop. He is not much to look at: a cross between a vampire and a computer geek. But by using high-powered marketing techniques he's turned seduction into an effortless craft--even inventing his own vocabulary. His technique sounds like a car salesman's tip sheet: his main rule is FMAC--find, meet, attract, close. He employs the "three-second rule"--always approach a woman within three seconds of first seeing her in order to avoid getting shy. Other tricks: Intrigue a beautiful woman by pretending to be unaffected by her charm; also, never hit on a woman right away. Start with a disarming, innocent remark, like "Do you think magic spells work?" or "Oh my god, did you see those two girls fighting outside?" And finally, the most important characteristic of the pickup artist--smile.

After two years, Strauss ends up becoming almost as successful as Mystery, but he comes to an important realization. His techniques were actually off-putting to the woman he ended up falling in love with. And they never prepared him for actually having a relationship. After a while, he ran out of one-liners and had to have a real conversation. Still, The Game is a great read that may help some AFCs come out of their shells. --Alex Roslin

Hidden somewhere, in nearly every major city in the world, is an underground seduction lair. And in these lairs, men trade the most devastatingly effective techniques ever invented to charm women. This is not fiction. These men really exist. They live together in houses known as Projects. And Neil Strauss, the bestselling author, spent two years living among them, using the pseudonym Style to protect his real-life identity. The result is one of the most explosive and controversial books of the year -- guaranteed to change the lives of men and transform the way women understand the opposite sex forever.

On his journey from AFC (average frustrated chump) to PUA (pick-up artist) to PUG (pick-up guru), Strauss not only shares scores of original seduction techniques but also has unforgettable encounters with the likes of Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Heidi Fleiss, and Courtney Love. And then things really start to get strange -- and passions lead to betrayals lead to violence. The Game is the story of one man's transformation from frog to prince -- to prisoner in the most unforgettable book of the year.

Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

Is someone else's problem your problem? If, like so many others, you've lost sight of your own life in the drama of tending to someone else's, you may be codependent-and you may find yourself in this book.

The healing touchstone of millions, this modern classic by one of America's best-loved and most inspirational authors holds the key to understanding codependency and to unlocking its stultifying hold on your life.

With instructive life stories, personal reflections, exercises, and self-tests, Codependent No More is a simple, straightforward, readable map of the perplexing world of codependency-charting the path to freedom and a lifetime of healing, hope, and happiness.

Melody Beattie is the author of Beyond Codependency, The Language of Letting Go, Stop Being Mean to Yourself, and Playing It by Heart.

For Women Only: What You Need to Know about the Inner Lives of Men

What’s going on in a man’s mind? From their early days, every woman has struggled to understand why males behave the way they do. Even long-married women who think they understand men have only scratched the surface. Beneath a man’s rugged exterior is an even more rugged, unmapped terrain. What bestselling author Shaunti Feldhahn’s research reveals about the inner lives of men will open women’s eyes to what the men in their life—boyfriends, brothers, husbands, and sons—are really thinking and feeling. Men want to be understood, but they’re afraid to “freak out” the women they love by confessing what is happening inside their heads. This book will guide women in how to provide the loving support that modern men want and need.

The Truth About His Inner Life

He Desperately Wants You to Know

What's going on in there? Ever been totally confused by something your man has said or done? Want to understand his secret desires and fears, his daily battles that you know nothing about?

In a woman-to-woman conversation you’ll never forget, Shaunti Feldhahn takes you beneath the surface into the inner lives of men. This book is about the things we just don’t ‘get’ about guys. With findings from a groundbreaking national survey and personal interviews of over one thousand men, For Women Only is full of eye-opening revelations you need to not only understand the man in your life, but to support and love him in the way he needs to be loved. Grounded in biblical hope, you will discover how to love your man for who he really is—not who you think he is.

Story Behind the Book

I had no idea how clueless I was about men until I interviewed a bunch of them for my last novel. Initially, I just wanted a little insight so I could write my main (male) character. But pretty soon I found myself astonished, over and over again blurting out, “That’s what you’re thinking?” So I did more interviews. After the novel hit shelves, dozens of women told me they also had been astonished by what I included. Clearly I wasn’t the only one who needed more insight on this!

To lay the groundwork for this nonfiction book, I wrote out the half-dozen things from these interviews that had most surprised me—things that appeared to be universal to most men—that women desperately needed to know. I conducted a professional national survey of men to test my findings. Yep—the survey substantiated every single one. These findings are fascinating—and they have already changed my life and marriage. I can’t wait to share them!

Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desperately Needs

Based upon Ephesians 5:33 and extensive biblical and psychological research, Dr. Emerson Eggerichs reveals the power of unconditional love and unconditional respect and how husbands and wives can reap the benefits of marriage that God intended.