Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

• Based on the best-selling book of the same name by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, a multidimensional study of one of the biggest business scandals in American history. The chronicle takes a look at one of the greatest corporate disasters in history, in which top executives from the 7th largest company in this country walked away with over one billion dollars, leaving investors

ENRON:SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM - DVD MovieOne of the greatest scandals in American corporate history is chronicled in the riveting documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Based on the bestselling book by Fortune magazine reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkin, and directed by Alex Gibney (who also produced The Trials of Henry Kissinger), the film is an epic morality tale, drawing upon a wealth of insider interviews and archival material to show how Enron, once the na! tion's seventh largest corporate entity, essentially faked its bookkeeping to report profits that never existed. The corrupt and closely-guarded mismanagement by Enron executives (including Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, later placed on criminal trial) is revealed through such heinous concepts as "Hypothetical Future Value" (a way of reaping fortunes based on false profit projections) and the use of offshore "shell" companies to hide the massive losses that eventually toppled the company (along with the venerable Arthur Anderson accounting firm) and left 20,000 employees jobless. As a maddening portrait of hubris and white-collar crime, Enron transcends political and corporate boundaries by showing how smart and powerful men grew blinded by greed and brought ruin upon themselves, along with thousands of otherwise innocent victims. For better and worse, it's a perfect double-feature with eye-opening 2004 documentary The Corporation. --Jeff Shannon
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Dune, 40th Anniversary Edition (Dune Chronicles, Book 1)

• ISBN13: 9780441013593
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

The all-time science fiction masterpiece...now in a special hardcover edition.

"Unique...I know nothing comparable to it except Lord of the Rings."--Arthur C. Clarke

Here is the novel that will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud'dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family--and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.

A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of wh! at is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction. Frank Herbert's death in 1986 was a tragic loss, yet the astounding legacy of his visionary fiction will live forever.This Hugo and Nebula Award winner tells the sweeping tale of a desert planet called Arrakis, the focus of an intricate power struggle in a byzantine interstellar empire. Arrakis is the sole source of Melange, the "spice of spices." Melange is necessary for interstellar travel and grants psychic powers and longevity, so whoever controls it wields great influence.

The troubles begin when stewardship of Arrakis is transferred by the Emperor from the Harkonnen Noble House to House Atreides. The Harkonnens don't want to give up their privilege, though, and through sabotage and treachery they cast young Duke Paul Atreides out into the planet's harsh environment to die. There he falls in with the Fremen, a tribe of desert dwellers who become the basis of the army with which he will reclaim wha! t's rightfully his. Paul Atreides, though, is far more than j! ust a us urped duke. He might be the end product of a very long-term genetic experiment designed to breed a super human; he might be a messiah. His struggle is at the center of a nexus of powerful people and events, and the repercussions will be felt throughout the Imperium.

Dune is one of the most famous science fiction novels ever written, and deservedly so. The setting is elaborate and ornate, the plot labyrinthine, the adventures exciting. Five sequels follow. --Brooks Peck

10 Things I Hate About You

• A cool cast of young stars is just one of the things you ll love about this hilarious comedy hit! On the first day at his new school, Cameron (Joseph Gordon Levitt Halloween: H20, TV s 3rd Rock From The Sun) instantly falls for Bianca (Larisa Oleynik The Baby-Sitters Club), the gorgeous girl of his dreams! The only problem is that Bianca is forbidden to date.until her ill-tempered, completely un-

Ellie, a free-spirited and headstrong young woman is left in charge of a residential home over the Christmas holidays. Her youth and inexperience bring her into bitter conflict with the four grumpy old residents. HOW ABOUT YOU deals with the hilarious antics of this uncivilized group, an unlikely romance, and the gradual solidarity that develops between the residents and Ellie, in this critically acclaimed heartwarming and irresistible film.Greenwich Village newlyweds Jamie and Paul Buchman (Academy ! Award winner Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser) reach new heights of hilarity and neurosis in the third season of this Emmy Award-winning comedy series. With lovable characters in both achingly real and hilariously unreal situations, this smartly written sitcom showcases a Manhattan couple trying their hardest to keep love alive in the midst of all the mad, mad, mad, mad, madness that modern marriage can bring!Four years after Mad About You's complete second season was released on DVD (and two years after a highlights collection seemed to signal the end of season-by-season releases), the complete third season of everyone's favorite neurotic couple is finally on DVD. If Paul (Paul Reiser) and Jamie (Helen Hunt) Buchman don't drive each other nuts, they'll do it to their British neighbors, or the whole building, such as when an attempt to steal cable TV goes awry ("Pandora's Box"). Not to mention their whole crazy cast of characters, including Jamie's useless sister Lisa (A! nne Ramsay), Paul's shifty cousin Ira (John Pankow), Paul's pa! rents (C ynthia Harris and Louis Zorich), Jamie's parents (Theresa Fuller and John Carlin, replaced in later years by the stunt casting of Carol Burnett and Carol O'Connor), the building super (Jerry Adler), Jamie's best friend Fran (Leila Kenzie), and supremely clueless waitress Ursula (Lisa Kudrow). Some of the episodes had appeared on the highlights collection, such as the zany Thanksgiving dinner ("Giblets for Murray"), Paul's reality TV show in which he turns the camera on Jamie and himself ("Our Fifteen Minutes"), and Carl Reiner's appearance as a TV legend ("The Alan Brady Show"). But others are finally seeing the DVD daylight, including "The Ride Home," in which Paul and Jamie take a cab ride and recount, from different perspectives, how Fran's birthday party turned into a disaster involving guest stars Wendie Malick and Eric Stoltz. In the two-part "Mad About You," they flash back to the preparation for their wedding, and Paul flashes back to birthdays from hell in "Cake ! Fear." Cyndi Lauper returns as Ira's ex-wife (a guest appearance for which she won an Emmy, as did Reiner) in "Money Changes Everything" and Stoltz turns Jamie into a comic-book character ("My Boyfriend's Back"). Then in the two-part season finale, they're transported It's a Wonderful Life-style into a world in which they'd never met ("Up in Smoke").

Does it matter that the set has no bonus features? Maybe not so much. The bells and whistles of the Mad About You Collection were nice, but they don't compare to having a complete season's worth of episodes on DVD. We want Paul and Jamie, with their hilarious and touching quirks and chemistry, just as we watched them on TV. That's all we're saying. --David HoriuchiAfter being cut from the usa softball team and feeling a bit past her prime lisa finds herself evaluating her life and in the middle of a love triangle as a corporate guy in crisis competes with her current baseball-playing beau. S! tudio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 03/22/2011 Starr! ing: Ree se Witherspoon Owen Wilson Run time: 121 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: James L. BrooksCompared to previous James L. Brooks dramedies, like As Good As It Gets, How Do You Know feels slight, but it still marks an improvement over the ill-conceived Spanglish. The setup begins with a newly minted couple and a brand-new single. Lisa (Reese Witherspoon), a pro softball player, dates Matty (Owen Wilson), a major-league pitcher, who lives in the same Washington, D.C., high rise as financial exec Charles (Jack Nicholson, looking ill at ease), whose son and employee, George (Paul Rudd), gets the boot from his girlfriend after he loses his job. When George meets Lisa, who didn't make the team, sparks fly, but she's unavailable, so they get on with their lives. Hardly the brightest bulb, Matty raises Lisa's spirits with his goofy antics, so she moves in with him. Then George finds out he faces charges for tax fraud, even though he broke no laws. While his pregna! nt assistant, Annie (Crossing Jordan's Kathryn Hahn), supports him through the crisis, he can't stop thinking about the blonde from the elevator, so he tries to get to know Lisa better. Throughout the rest of this glossy entertainment, their friendship verges on romance, but Lisa stays with Matty, until Annie helps her to see George clearly for the first time. As love triangles go, Brooks isn't reinventing the wheel, making this underwritten affair one of his less inspired creations, but Witherspoon, Rudd, and Wilson are good company--even if the latter is essentially reprising his vacuous Zoolander character (just substitute baseball for modeling). --Kathleen C. FennessyA cool cast of young stars is just one of the things you'll love about this hilarious comedy hit! On the first day at his new school, Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt -- HALLOWEEN: H2O, TV's "3RD Rock From The Sun") instantly falls for Bianca (Larisa Oleynik -- THE BABY SITTERS CLUB), the ! gorgeous girl of his dreams. The only problem is that Bianca i! s forbid den to date ... until her ill-tempered, completely un-dateable older sister Kat (Julia Stiles -- THE BOURNE IDENTITY, SAVE THE LAST DANCE) goes out too! In an attempt to solve his problem, Cameron singles out the only guy who could possibly be a match for Kat: a mysterious bad-boy (Heath Ledger -- A KNIGHT'S TALE, THE PATRIOT) with a nasty reputation of his own! Also featuring a hip soundtrack -- this witty comedy is a wildly entertaining look at exactly how far some guys will go to get a date!It's, like, Shakespeare, man! This good-natured and likeable update of The Taming of the Shrew takes the basics of Shakespeare's farce about a surly wench and the man who tries to win her and transfers it to modern-day Padua High School. Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles) is a sullen, forbidding riot grrrl who has a blistering word for everyone; her sunny younger sister Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) is poised for high school stardom. The problem: overprotective and paranoid Papa Stratford (! a dryly funny Larry Miller) won't let Bianca date until boy-hating Kat does, which is to say never. When Bianca's pining suitor Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) gets wind of this, he hires the mysterious, brooding Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger) to loosen Kat up. Of course, what starts out as a paying gig turns to true love as Patrick discovers that underneath her brittle exterior, Kat is a regular babe. The script, by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, is sitcom-funny with peppy one-liners and lots of smart teenspeak; however, its cleverness and imagination doesn't really extend beyond its characters' Renaissance names and occasional snippets of real Shakespearean dialogue. What makes the movie energetic and winning is the formula that helped make She's All That such a big hit: two high-wattage stars who look great and can really act. Ledger is a hunk of promise with a quick grin and charming Aussie accent, and Stiles mines Kat's bitterness and anger to depths usual! ly unknown in teen films; her recitation of her English class ! sonnet ( from which the film takes its title) is funny, heartbreaking, and hopelessly romantic. The imperious Allison Janney (Primary Colors) nearly steals the film as a no-nonsense guidance counselor secretly writing a trashy romance novel. --Mark Englehart

The Borrowers

• ISBN13: 9780152047375
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

Pod, Homily, and Arrietty Clock's huge adventures have been thrilling children young and old for fifty years--and their appeal is as strong as ever in these handsome new paperback packages. While the original beloved interior illustrations by Beth and Joe Krush have been retained, Marla Frazee's striking cover illustrations capture these little people with a larger-than-life appeal.

Anyone who has ever entertained the notion of "little people" living furtively among us will adore this artfully spun classic. The Borrowers--a Carnegie Medal winner, a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award book, and an ALA Distinguished Book--has stolen the hearts of thousands of readers since its 1953 publica! tion. Mary Norton (1903-1993) creates a make-believe world in which tiny people live hidden from humankind beneath the floorboards of a quiet country house in England.

Pod, Homily, and daughter Arrietty of the diminutive Clock family outfit their subterranean quarters with the tidbits and trinkets they've "borrowed" from "human beans," employing matchboxes for storage and postage stamps for paintings. Readers will delight in the resourceful way the Borrowers recycle household objects. For example, "Homily had made her a small pair of Turkish bloomers from two glove fingers for 'knocking about in the mornings.'"

The persistent pilfering goes undetected until a boy (with a ferret!) comes to live in the country house. Curiosity drives Arrietty to commit the worst mistake a Borrower can make: she allows herself to be seen. This engaging, sometimes hair-raisingly suspenseful adventure is recounted in the kind, eloquent voice of narrator Mrs. May, whose br! other might--just might--have seen an actual Borrower in the ! country house many years ago. (Ages 9 to 12)