Fitness superstar Chalene Johnson creates a revolutionary 30-day system that will allow readers to transform their bodies, their diets, and their lives!
Chalene Johnson built a fitness empire from the ground up, selling over 6 million DVDs and helping legions of loyal fans shed pounds and transform their lives with her trademark enthusiasm and energy.
PUSH, Chalene’s first book ever, distills the wisdom that has made her a fitness queen into a totally unique 30-day system that will help readers reset their priorities, get their lives together, and lose weight for good.
Chalene gives readers the life-changing tools they need to change their habits with 30 days of practical steps that include pinpointing goals, reverse engineering a course of action to achieve them, and kicking the clutter—whether that means junk food, draining exercise regimens, or toxic relationships. In one month, readers will learn how to create layers of accountability and support so that success is their only option.
Additionally, Chalene shares 30 ridiculously easy and delicious Throw-and-Go recipes that she (a self confessed mess in the kitchen) created herself. And, of course, no book from Chalene would be complete without a workout! Chalene guides readers to find their soul mate workouts—the exercises they’ll love for life and that will never feel like work. Finally, she gives readers the Bangin’ Body Workout: the 30 moves they need for total body fitness—for life!
Question: Given all the jobs that you have--game designer, fatherhood, Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie work, etc.,--do you have a certain time that you set aside to write?
Kinney: I still treat writing like a hobby, working mostly at night and sometimes on weekends. But when a deadline looms my hobby time gets extended into the wee hours of the night. It's not uncommon for me to work until 4:00 a.m., and I'm usually back at work by 9:00 a.m.
Q: Did you get to choose which character you would play in the Wimpy Kid films (Mr. Hills)? What do you enjoy most about working on the movies?
Kinney: I never any real desire to appear in the Wimpy Kid films, but one day my wife encouraged me to be an extra in one of the crowd scenes. So I walked onto the set, ready to ask the assistant director to put me somewhere in the back. It happened that right at that moment the director was looking for someone to play the role of Mr. Hills, Holly Hills's father. What I didn't realize was that I'd be front and center in the church scene, and in the new movie, I'm even more prominent. I'm incredibly self-conscious so appearing on-camera was a real stretch for me.
Q: In 2009 Time magazine named you as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World--what’s the first thing you did after you found out?
Kinney: I thought it was a practical joke, so I tried to track down the source of the joke. I eventually reached a voicemail of a reporter who said they worked for Time, and at that point I thought it was just a well-planned practical joke. It took me a while to realize it was for real. It was a big honor, but I don't take it very seriously. I'm the fourth most influential person in my own house.
Q: Would you ever consider making Wimpy Kid into a newspaper comic strip or creating another one? Do you have any favorite comic strips that you currently read?
Kinney: I've considered it. I set out to become a newspaper cartoonist but failed to break in. But I like the freedom books give me, so it would be tough to cram my ideas into three or four panels.
Q: What is (or could be) you motto in life?
Kinney: I was inspired to write by a Benjamin Franklin quote: "Well done is better than well said." But I always encourage kids to "create something great," because the tools to create something original and find an audience are available to them like never before.
Q: What was your favorite year in school, and why?
Kinney: Fifth grade was my favorite year. I had a great teacher, Mrs. Norton, who encouraged me to be funny and challenged me to be a better artist and joke-teller than I was. I liked it that she didn't coddle me.
Q: Kids now ask for a book that is “like Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” and with this series you’ve created a whole new subset of books for young readers--how does it feel to be the person behind such massive book enjoyment, reaching reluctant readers, and spawning any number of titles that aspire to be “the next Wimpy Kid?”
Kinney: I'm happy that kids are reading. I think graphical books reach kids who might otherwise see books as work. Books should be fun!
Product Description
Greg Heffley is in big trouble. School property has been damaged, and Greg is the prime suspect. But the crazy thing is, he’s innocent. Or at least sort of.
The authorities are closing in, but when a surprise blizzard hits, the Heffley family is trapped indoors. Greg knows that when the snow melts he’s going to have to face the music, but could any punishment be worse than being stuck inside with your family for the holidays?
This review is from: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever (Hardcover)
Reviewed by Darren (age 10): I love the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, and this book, Cabin Fever, I thought was the most funny. I don't want to spoil it, but there are very funny jokes in this book. Greg gets trapped in the house during a snow storm and is accused of a crime---which he sort of did. If I were to give this book a rating, 10 being the best, and 1 being the least best, I'd give it a 9.75.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
This review is from: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever (Hardcover)
Greg is back and running from the law. When Greg and Rowley scheme up a plan to make some money for Christmas, their idea goes awry as usual, and school property is damaged. When a blizzard hits, Greg is stuck inside with his family but that's better than being hauled off to jail, right?
I enjoyed this book. Yes, some elements require the reader to imagine a little (like the family not noticing the neighbors having electricity), but what children's book doesn't? I am a librarian at an elementary school, and I found the jokes about education hilarious. The kids were getting hurt on the playground equipment, so they removed each piece of equipment. When a kid got stuck, the teachers weren't allowed to touch a kid, so the parents had to come. They removed sugar drinks, so kids started selling them behind the school. It was also fun to see Manny grow up a little and become more of player in the storyline.
Fans of the series will enjoy this funny addition.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
BEST ONE YET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, November 19, 2011
A Kid's Review
This review is from: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever (Hardcover)
Basically, there are some funny parts in this book. One part is when Greg loves a doll named Alfrendo and he loses it, so as a substitute, he draws a face on a grape fruit and raps it in paper towel. The thing rots and his dad throws it away. So Greg finds a website when you take care of a virtral pet chiwawa and gets adiced to it and won't get of of it or else his chawawa would get sick. Another funny part is the time he finds a magic set when the power goes out and convinses Manny there is a hole in the tabe and "slips" a cup through the table so manny trys with his mom's glasses and they break, and Greg is forced to take care of Manny.Because of these funny things is why I gave this book five stars.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
A riveting account ofd the roller-coaster life of a creative enrepreneur. New and unread stated first Simon & Schuster edition, first printing hardcover and dust jacket in exc ellent condition. No marks, tgears, wear. Protective mylar cover.
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, November 2011: It is difficult to read the opening pages of Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs without feeling melancholic. Jobs retired at the end of August and died about six weeks later. Now, just weeks after his death, you can open the book that bears his name and read about his youth, his promise, and his relentless press to succeed. But the initial sadness in starting the book is soon replaced by something else, which is the intensity of the read--mirroring the intensity of Jobs’s focus and vision for his products. Few in history have transformed their time like Steve Jobs, and one could argue that he stands with the Fords, Edisons, and Gutenbergs of the world. This is a timely and complete portrait that pulls no punches and gives insight into a man whose contradictions were in many ways his greatest strength. --Chris Schluep
Amazon Exclusive: A Q&A with Walter Isaacson
Q: It's becoming well known that Jobs was able to create his Reality Distortion Field when it served him. Was it difficult for you to cut through the RDF and get beneath the narrative that he created? How did you do it?
Isaacson: Andy Hertzfeld, who worked with Steve on the original Macintosh team, said that even if you were aware of his Reality Distortion Field, you still got caught up in it. But that is why Steve was so successful: He willfully bent reality so that you became convinced you could do the impossible, so you did. I never felt he was intentionally misleading me, but I did try to check every story. I did more than a hundred interviews. And he urged me not just to hear his version, but to interview as many people as possible. It was one of his many odd contradictions: He could distort reality, yet he was also brutally honest most of the time. He impressed upon me the value of honesty, rather than trying to whitewash things.
Q: How were the interviews with Jobs conducted? Did you ask lots of questions, or did he just talk?
Isaacson: I asked very few questions. We would take long walks or drives, or sit in his garden, and I would raise a topic and let him expound on it. Even during the more formal sessions in his living room, I would just sit quietly and listen. He loved to tell stories, and he would get very emotional, especially when talking about people in his life whom he admired or disdained.
Q: He was a powerful man who could hold a grudge. Was it easy to get others to talk about Jobs willingly? Were they afraid to talk?
Isaacson: Everyone was eager to talk about Steve. They all had stories to tell, and they loved to tell them. Even those who told me about his rough manner put it in the context of how inspiring he could be.
Q: Jobs embraced the counterculture and Buddhism. Yet he was a billionaire businessman with his own jet. In what way did Jobs' contradictions contribute to his success?
Isaacson: Steve was filled with contradictions. He was a counterculture rebel who became a billionaire. He eschewed material objects yet made objects of desire. He talked, at times, about how he wrestled with these contradictions. His counterculture background combined with his love of electronics and business was key to the products he created. They combined artistry and technology.
Q: Jobs could be notoriously difficult. Did you wind up liking him in the end?
Isaacson: Yes, I liked him and was inspired by him. But I knew he could be unkind and rough. These things can go together. When my book first came out, some people skimmed it quickly and cherry-picked the examples of his being rude to people. But that was only half the story. Fortunately, as people read the whole book, they saw the theme of the narrative: He could be petulant and rough, but this was driven by his passion and pursuit of perfection. He liked people to stand up to him, and he said that brutal honesty was required to be part of his team. And the teams he built became extremely loyal and inspired.
Q: Do you believe he was a genius?
Isaacson: He was a genius at connecting art to technology, of making leaps based on intuition and imagination. He knew how to make emotional connections with those around him and with his customers.
Q: Did he have regrets?
Isaacson: He had some regrets, which he expressed in his interviews. For example, he said that he did not handle well the pregnancy of his first girlfriend. But he was deeply satisfied by the creativity he ingrained at Apple and the loyalty of both his close colleagues and his family.
Q: What do you think is his legacy?
Isaacson: His legacy is transforming seven industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, digital publishing, and retail stores. His legacy is creating what became the most valuable company on earth, one that stood at the intersection of the humanities and technology, and is the company most likely still to be doing that a generation from now. His legacy, as he said in his "Think Different" ad, was reminding us that the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
This is a gripping journey into the life of an amazing individual. Despite its girth of nearly 600 pages, the book zips along at a torrid pace.
The interviews with Jobs are fascinating and revealing. We get a real sense for what it must have been like to be Steve, or to work with him. That earns the book five stars despite its flaws, in that it's definitely a must-read if you have any interest at all in the subject.
But there are places in the book where I have to say, "Huh?"
The book is written essentially as a series of stories about Steve. The book continuously held my interest, but some of the dramas of his life seem muted. For instance, he came close to going bust when both Next and Pixar were flailing. There was only the slightest hint that anything dramatic happened in those years. In one paragraph, Pixar is shown as nearly running him out of money. A few brief paragraphs later, Toy Story gets released and Jobs' finances are saved for... Read more
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Steve Jobs wanted to change the world, "put a dent in the universe." And he did. If you are interested in life and want to know how Jobs changed it right before our eyes, you should read this book.
No other book on Jobs has been based on first hand information from the Master himself, his colleagues and his detractors. There is no other way to know the man who changed the way we live and work. The fact that the book is engaging is a big bonus.
First Jobs' personal life, personality and beliefs. Like all fascinating people in history, Jobs was a bundle of contradictions. Born out of wedlock, he was an American icon and yet born of a Syrian Muslim whom he never knew, but had accidentally met. Adopted at birth by working class parents, he became skeptical of the Church as the all-knowing god did not help the starving children in Biafra and alternated between being a believer and a non-believer. He was, at different times, a vegan and a fruitarian (hence the name... Read more
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
INTRODUCTION Apple has always meant more to me than as a computer company, because of my early experiences in the late 1970's and early 1980's from age 8 using the Apple ][, //e, and later the Mac. They represented amazing products that I could understand even as a child, that this was the direction of the future. It was odd to me then, that the world was still embracing the MS-DOS command line interface and the IBM PC/AT machines. When in the late 1990's, Apple neared bankruptcy, with Microsoft Windows dominating the market, it taught me as a young man that companies that try to make the very best can be under appreciated by the masses, just as the adults near me in the 1980's could not see the amazing nature of my Apple //e and Mac back then. Good guys, it seemed, do finish last. It was disheartening.
Since the return of Steve Jobs to Apple, the world now knows of his genius and brilliance.
This biography is utterly amazing. I could not stop reading... Read more
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
