Amazon Top Tweets June 21, 2009

Amazon.com gift certificates can be used to purchase almost anything in our store, including most items sold by Marketplace sellers and Amazon Merchants (except The Bombay Company, Circuit City, Eddie Bauer, Newport News, Nordstrom, Spiegel, and Ultimate Outlet Brands). For more information, see the Fine Print above. Sending E-mail Gift Certificates: When sending e-mail gift certificates, please be aware that some e-mail programs may block or even delete e-mail messages which originate from an address not specified by the recipient as an accepted address. All Amazon.com e-mail gift certificates are sent from gc-orders@a2zgiftcerts.amazon.com. If you are concerned that your recipient may have e-mail filters turned on, you may want to send or reissue the gift certificate to your own e-mail address and then forward it to them or print it out to give to them. Redeeming Gift Certificates: When you enter the certificate’s claim code for the first time, the certificate is automatically redeemed onto your account, and this information is logged into our database, even if you don’t place an order at that time. After you have entered the claim code once, you do not need to enter it again–even if you back up and change other information in the course of placing your order. If you receive an error message that the gift certificate has been redeemed, and the funds are not being applied to your order, it could be that you have more than one Amazon.com account, and that the funds are redeemed to one of your other accounts. Questions about purchasing or using a gift certificate can be sent through our Contact Us form online.

Hal Ashby (1929–1988) was always an outsider, and as a director he brought an outsider’s perspective to Hollywood cinema. After moving to California from a Mormon household in Utah, he created eccentric films that reflected the uncertain social climate of the 1970s. Whether it is his enduring cult classic Harold and Maude (1971) or the iconic Being There (1979), Ashby’s artistry is unmistakable. His skill for blending intense drama with off-kilter comedy attracted A-list actors and elicited powerful performances from Jack Nicholson in The Last Detail (1973), Warren Beatty and Julie Christie in Shampoo (1975), and Jon Voight and Jane Fonda in Coming Home (1979). Yet the man behind these films is still something of a mystery.

 

In Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel, author Nick Dawson for the first time tells the story of a man whose thoughtful and challenging body of work continues to influence modern filmmakers and whose life was as dramatic and unconventional as his films. Ashby began his career as an editor, and it did not take long for his talents to be recognized. He won an Academy Award in 1967 for editing In the Heat of the Night and leveraged his success as an editor to pursue his true passion: directing. Crafting seminal films that steered clear of mainstream conventions yet attracted both popular and critical praise, Ashby became one of the quintessential directors of the 1970s New Hollywood movement.

 

No matter how much success Ashby achieved, he was never able to escape the ghosts of his troubled childhood. The divorce of his parents, his father’s suicide, and his own marriage and divorce—all before the age of nineteen—led to a lifelong struggle with drugs for which he became infamous in Hollywood. And yet, contrary to mythology, it was not Ashby’s drug abuse that destroyed his career but a fundamental mismatch between the director and the stifling climate of 1980s studio filmmaking.

 

Although his name may not be recognized by many of today’s filmgoers, Hal Ashby is certainly familiar to filmmakers. Despite his untimely death in 1988, his legacy of innovation and individuality continues to influence a generation of independent directors, including Wes Anderson, Sean Penn, and the Coen brothers, who place substance and style above the pursuit of box-office success. In this groundbreaking and exhaustively researched biography, Nick Dawson draws on firsthand interviews and personal papers from Ashby’s estate to offer an intimate look at the tumultuous life of an artist unwilling to conform or compromise.

Sleek & Trim Kindle DX is as thin as most magazines. Just over a third of an inch in profile, you’ll find Kindle DX fits perfectly in your hands. Beautiful Large Display Kindle DX’s large display is ideal for a broad range of reading material, including graphic-rich books, PDFs, newspapers, magazines, and blogs. Kindle DX’s display is two and a half times the size of the Kindle display. Whether you’re reading the latest bestseller or a financial report, text and images are amazingly sharp on the 9.7″ screen. Auto-Rotating Screen By simply turning the device, you can immediately see full-width landscape views of maps, graphs, tables and Web pages. Built-In PDF Reader Unload the loose documents from your briefcase or backpack, and put them all on Kindle DX. From neighborhood newsletters to financial statements to case studies and product manuals–you can take them all with you on Kindle DX. Native PDF support allows you to carry and read all of your personal and professional documents on the go. With Amazon’s Whispernet service, you can send your documents directly to your Kindle DX and read them anytime, anywhere. 5-Way Controller Kindle DX has an easy-to-use 5-way controller, enabling precise on-screen navigation for selecting text to highlight or looking up words. Simple to Use, No Computer Required Kindle DX is completely wireless and ready to use right out of the box–no setup, no cables, no computer required. Long Battery Life - Read for Days Without Recharging With Kindle DX’s long battery life, you can read on a single charge for up to 4 days with wireless on. Turn wireless off and read for up to 2 weeks. Battery life will vary based on wireless usage, such as shopping the Kindle Store and downloading content. In low coverage areas or in 1xRTT only coverage, wireless usage will consume battery power more quickly.

They own the night! Gargoyles: Clan Building Volume Two collects issue #7-8 of the Disney / SLG Gargoyles comic book series, and includes unpublished material from issues #9-12, completing the Clan Building saga.

The hit comic book series gets collected in trade paperback form just in time for the holidays. Gathering together the stories from issues #1-6, Gargoyles: Clan Building Volume One promises to be one of the best selling trade paperback SLG puts out this year. The series is still seen on the various Disney channels and the fan base remains as passionate about this book as it was during its initial run in syndication. Written by Greg Weisman, who created and produced the animated series and who is now producing the SPIDER-MAN The Animated Series for Sony, the stories presented in the comic book series represent the first additoins to the Gargoyles canon since the series ended almost 10 years ago. Presented in full color, this is going to be a must buy for all Gargoyles fans.

What is the investment opportunity from America’s financial crisis? Somewhere north of one trillion dollars of debt–mortgages, credit cards, and other forms–will be written off and sold to buyers at pennies on the dollar. It gets even better: There are ways to buy that debt with no money of your own.

Society’s collective pain from this crisis means that it’s unlikely to occur ever again on this scale. Investors with the right roadmap are poised to profit spectacularly. Bartmann lays out a step by step plan on how to find the best deals from the federal government, local Financial Institutions, and loan brokers. The spectrum of loans that are available include: credit card debt, consumer loans, business loans, commercial loans, and real estate loans.

You’ve heard about the massive government bailout of the financial sector and its cost to taxpayers. Couple that with skyrocketing unemployment and a shrinking stock market and you might think this is a terrible time to invest in anything. But you’d be wrong.

In Bailout Riches!, Bill Bartmann shows you how to invest in the bailout itself and take your own cut of the trillion-dollar pie. What does Bartmann know about bailouts? Only that the last big-time government bailout-involving the savings and loan crisis and the government’s Resolution Trust Corporation- made him a billionaire. This time around, the bailout is much bigger and opportunities for profit are much greater.

“Who better to teach you how to prosper from this economic chaos than a man who actually took himself from ‘bankruptcy to billionaire’ during the last crisis.”–Ken Blanchard, coauthor, The One Minute Entrepreneur

“Bill Bartmann is more than a great financial success story; he is a phenomenal teacher who has helped thousands of my students achieve success. Bailout Riches will show you how you can prosper during these tumultuous times.” –T. Harv Eker, author, New York Times #1 bestseller, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind

“When the economy is in crisis, Bill Bartmann finds the diamond in the rough. The information in this book made him a billionaire fourteen years ago during the S&L crisis. Now the economy is cratering again and his methods are working better than ever. Read this book and discover a hidden source of wealth all around you.”–David Lindahl, author of Emerging Real Estate Markets and Multi-Family Millions

Mackenzie Allen Philips’ youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack’s world forever. In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant “The Shack” wrestles with the timeless question, “Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?” The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You’ll want everyone you know to read this book!