Winner Best New Non-Fiction The 2020 Best Book Awards
The Book of Help traces one woman’s life-long quest for love, connection, and peace of mind. A heartbreakingly vulnerable and tragically funny memoir-in-remedies, Megan Griswold’s narrative spans four decades and six continents—from the glaciers of Patagonia and the psycho-tropics of Brazil, to academia, the Ivy League, and the study of Eastern medicine.
Megan was born into a family who enthusiastically embraced the offerings of New Age California culture—at seven she asked Santa for her first mantra and by twelve she was taking weekend workshops on personal growth. But later, when her newly-wedded husband calls in the middle of the night to say he’s landed in jail, Megan must accept that her many certificates, degrees and licenses had not been the finish line she’d once imagined them to be, but instead the preliminary training for what would prove to be the wildest, most growth-insisting journey of her life.
Winner Best Cover Design: Non-Fiction The 2020 Best Book Awards
"In an unredeemed, low-consciousness, chaotic world filled with suffering, heartbreak and pain, Judith s story is a beacon of light and hope in the darkness."—Rabbi Joseph R. Schultz PhD
Does your life sometimes feel that it's too long, too hard and not fair? It did for Judith Briles.
As an award-winning author, her personal journey has been littered with NOES. Two of her children have died; she survived a life-threatening illness leaving her paralyzed several months; survived a divorce that the tabloids would have relished; overcame cancer; and lost everything she had built when a partner embezzled over a million dollars leaving her without any assets but family, friends ... and herself.
For Judith, too many times it was a sink or swim scenario ... but first, she had to learn how to tread water! Resilience became her middle name.
Broke and broken, she had to start over ... one step, one breath, one heartbeat at a time. Within When God Says NO, she reminds YOU that you are not alone when bad times surface. They will ... they do.
If you have experienced hurt, betrayal, fear, failure, critical illness, tragedy, or loss of a loved one and asked or thought: Why? or lamented, If only ... or Why did this happen to me ... to us? When God Says NO is written for you.
Winner Best Interior Design The 2020 Best Book Awards
Beautiful Living: Cooking the Cal-a-Vie Health Spa Way is a 304-page, coffee table cookbook featuring over 100 of the world-renowned, five-star retreat's delicious and healthy recipes written and tested for the home kitchen. Beautiful Living has stunning photography by award-winning Debora Smail and nationally recognized Max Kimbee and Anne Watson, and includes nutrition breakdowns for every dish and tips on cooking and preparing fresh, nutritious meals for your family and friends. It also tells the story of how Cal-a-Vie Health Spa, tucked into the rolling hills 40 miles north of San Diego but looking like it belongs in the 17th century French countryside, has earned international acclaim as a top destination spa where guests can lose weight and get recharged, rejuvenated, and reinvigorated.
“My struggle wasn’t unique by any stretch of the imagination, but it was silent.” —Angel G. Henry, Dents in the Ceiling
Dents in the Ceiling is a first-hand account from more than 30 women of color working in tech and Corporate America about their experiences navigating sexism and racism, forging allies, and rebounding resiliently throughout their careers.
Through the narratives, Angel G. Henry affirms women and helps them reclaim their voices. Dents in the Ceiling is a playbook for emerging minority women in tech and assists active allies with tools to break non-inclusive corporate norms.
It could happen to anyone. One afternoon coming home from the gym, Diane Wilson pulled to a stop at a red light. In an instant, her life changed in ways that could never be reversed. What unfolded was a vexing journey into a health care system with few insights or tools. Diane became a person with an invisible injury, that no one would talk about, that affected every second of her life and eventually birthed a new vocation, as an applied neuroscientist.
Brain Dance is a captivating, and touchingly candid true story. It traces Diane's journey through random and sometimes humorous events which shed light on how her brain kept her injury from her, the loss of focus, mobility and sense of self, an obsession of day-trading retirement funds, and finally holistic therapies-including a retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh, acupuncture, singing and neurofeedback. She chronicles the gift of recovery and her incredible journey to now help people around the world and make the most of their amazing brain. This book is for anyone who is curious about the brain, has had even a bump on the head or has felt totally lost in life and a need to start over.
Want to reignite your inner spark? Feel more in charge of your pathway through life? So long, Self-Help. Hello, Self-Hope, an inspired process of doable action steps that lead to an exponentially more dynamic life. Once you learn how to fill yourself up with hope, you can do just about anything. Giulietta Nardone’s journey toward self-hope began with the unexpected loss of her voice, due to a rare neurological condition. Doctors said she’d never sing again and be rendered mute. Faced with surrendering to sadness or seeking fulfillment off stage, she seized the opportunity to challenge the naysayers and embrace the cards she’d been dealt. Triumphant in singing, writing and painting , she launched a life-enhancing adventure called Feel More Alive! Bursting with thirty relatable stories, this gem is divided into five “ALIVE” sections: Awaken, Liberate, Improvise, Visualize, Express, each illustrated with one of Giulietta’s award-winning, magical paintings. Part memoir, part art gallery, part feel-better guide, this unique book will reignite your zest for living and transform your life into a glorious adventure.
Some Assembly Required chronicles the 10-month adventure of a couple living through the worst of times like it's the best of times. It's a story about having heart when what you really need is a brand-new liver.
"Full of wit and positivity, Some Assembly Required is a poignant memoir and the perfect book for anyone who has experienced the unique blessings and trials of caretaking a loved one." –Marnee Blake, award-winning author and RITA® Finalist
2021 AML Creative Nonfiction Winner 2021 International Book Awards Finalist 2021 Author Elite Finalist
What happens when an ambitious girl grows up to be a mother?
Maleah thinks being a stay-at-home mom makes her inferior to women with paying jobs. Plagued with unrelenting thoughts of inadequacy, she struggles to heal from postpartum depression without medication. Her search to save her body, her marriage, and her family leads to an unexpected revelation.
Lies of the Magpie sweeps readers into the heart and mind of an accomplishment-driven woman who worries that being a mother isn’t enough. Flowing with humor, witty observation, and sensitivity, the narrative escorts readers to a surprising epiphany of the liberating and healing power of motherhood.
The Wind Blows and the Flowers Dance is an Award-Winning Finalist in the Health: Death & Dying category of the 2021 International Book Awards. When a beloved husband dies after decades of marriage, his artist wife must redefine herself in order to go on. Now living alone, but not eager to think of herself as "a widow"— with the baggage of loneliness that term carries—Terre struggles to adapt from a life built for two. Blossoming as an artist, Terre reclaims her late husband's space in the home in order to use painting and poetry to grow anew. She also re-invents herself in the larger community, exploring opportunities newly available even as she grieves the loss of her former life. Terre's heartfelt story, complete with humorous anecdotes and touching reminiscences, is an inspiration to all those who know the best way to honor the deceased is to use the energy of grief to rise, renewed.
In 1999, a 49-year-old woman tended her garden outside of the Chicago suburban home she shared with her husband, daughter and pet dogs. Extended family lived close by. She had a job that she loved. Life didn’t get any better than this. One phone call changed everything.
A random blood test had just revealed that she had hepatitis C. She’d never heard of it before. Not only did she have it, but it had been swimming in her bloodstream for 30 years, contracted from a blood transfusion in 1969. Tests would reveal that her liver was engulfed in chronic active liver disease – almost cirrhotic. Hepatitis C in 1999 was a degenerative, often incurable and deadly disease. Something had to be done.
The only treatment at the time offered less than a 50% chance for cure and came with a plethora of nasty side effects. It was a yearlong regimen of chemotherapy that could trigger flu-like symptoms. And those patients who didn’t respond to this difficult protocol frequently found themselves immunocompromised when it was over and sicker than before. The “wonder drugs” were still a long way off.
While waiting 15 years for a cure, Labar Laskie took extraordinary measures – except the chemotherapy – to keep her symptoms at bay, calm her fears, and lift her spirits. Above the Din is her story.
A stunning, funny, and heartbreaking memoir, Welcome to California recalls one woman's diagnosis with bipolar disorder, which ultimately leads to her wrongful and traumatic incarceration in the Los Angeles County jail system.
At age thirty-one, Sandra Boszko leaves her Winnipeg home for Hollywood with two secrets: her desire to perform and her mental illness. Although her health has already twice sent her packing from L.A.'s world of acting schools, auditions, and stunt work, she's determined to succeed this time. But shortly after her arrival, Sandra's mind clicks into a manic state, and within twenty-four hours she finds herself in the worst hell imaginable: detained and manic in a system that refuses to follow protocol for inmates with mental illness.
Compelling reading for anyone seeking the courage to make more conscious choices and live fully awake, The Necktie and The Jaguar is a memoir with thought-provoking questions that encourage self-exploration. Author Carl Greer-businessman, philanthropist, and retired Jungian analyst and clinical psychologist-offers an illuminating roadmap to individuation and personal transformation. Greer found security in conforming to the cultural expectations of a postwar, midwestern, middle-class upbringing after a childhood tragedy taught him to constrict his emotions. Becoming president of an independent oil and gas company, he drove his team to success and built his wealth only to find in midlife that his spiritual self was crying out for expression. Undergoing Jungian analysis and becoming an analyst himself offered some soul nourishment. So did studying and practicing martial arts, whose principles helped him navigate challenges in the world of work. Still, it wasn't until Greer took a deep dive into shamanic training and practice that he was able to embody the qualities and emotions he had long denied and turn his attention to philanthropy.
The Universal Gravity Code placed as a Finalist in the “Spirituality” & “New Age” categories of the 2021 International Book Awards.
AH the “Gravity” of it all!
A normal everyday discussion with my husband planted the seed for this book. I don’t recall exactly what we were talking about, but I do remember saying in a sarcastic tone, “Ah, the gravity of it ALL.” In that moment I felt the correlation between the Earth’s gravitational pull and the gravitational pull of our morose thoughts. This realization came with an extreme rush of “Eureka!” which permeated every cell in my body. I instinctively knew that THIS WAS BIG!
Now we are in the midst of the most significant global awakening ever known to man.
As for the challenges we are facing now, well, this is gravity, folks. God is gravity! Not in the sense of punishment, but in the spirit of the gentle, kind demonstration that regardless of external circumstances, we are Love.
This is the story of an American C-47 ‘Dakota’ pilot who earned three Air Medals, seven Battle Stars and flew twenty-seven combat missions during the Second World War. As a young U.S. pilot, Harry Watson, arrived in Britain as the Battle of Normandy was reaching its crescendo. Thrown immediately into the fray, Harry, along with more than 200 aircraft, set off to carry supplies to the troops fighting in France. But with visibility reduced to zero, the aircraft were ordered to turn back – all did except Harry, who successfully delivered his life-saving cargo of blood and US Army nurses.
Harry continued to take risks, which resulted in many hair-raising episodes. This included almost being caught on the ground, while on an urgent fuel resupply mission for a platoon of General Patton’s tanks, by a German Mk.IV panzer and a battalion of supporting infantry.
In 1918, Rebecca Goldberg—a Jewish immigrant from the Russian Empire living in rural Wilmington, Massachusetts—lost her husband, Nathan, to a railroad accident, a tragedy that left her alone with six children to raise. To support the family after Nathan’s death, Rebecca continued work she’d done for years: keeping chickens. Once or twice a week, with a suitcase full of fresh eggs in one hand and a child in the other, she delivered her product to relatives and friends in and around Boston.
Then, in 1920—right at the start of Prohibition—one of Rebecca’s customers suggested that she start selling alcoholic beverages in addition to her eggs to add to her meagre income. He would provide his homemade raw alcohol; Rebecca would turn it into something drinkable and sell it to new customers in Wilmington. Desperate to feed her family and keep them together, and determined to make sure her kids would all graduate from high school, Rebecca agreed—making herself a wary participant in the illegal alcohol trade.
We are all born with a unique gift. Humanity needs you to find yours, now more than ever. Ocean Eagle discovered that when inspiration happens, a new beacon of light shines within, and his "True Self" is called back home to M.E. . . . My Essence!
We are all meant for great things, and that includes You!
As you travel along this journey with Ocean Eagle, you might find yourself searching within for that teacher, friend, parent, child, relative, spiritual guide, or mentor who said something that you never forgot. Turn inward and ask yourself . . . Why does that word or phrase inspire me to create change in my way of thinking and in my life?
"PLAYING FOR KEEPS” in business is a self-help memoir that provides a “cheat sheet” for your career success.
Best-Selling and Award-Winning Author, Mom and Mentor Therese Allison is recognized as a groundbreaking pioneer and female executive, who broke the glass ceiling in a mostly male business niche (insurance brokerage). Her goal now is to empower women (and men) to “WIN” in business and life by landing a dream job, building business allies, achieving financial success and creating a work/life balance.
Based on 35 years of years of success in business and life, Allison uncovers how she became financially independent at age 38 when her company (McKenna & Associates) was sold to AON, and then retired early at age 43 to spend quality time with her children.
The Prophetess speaks about her life growing up with Deaf parents in a hearing world. While growing up, she encounters many oppositions such as: the spirit of rejection; physical and mental abuse; sexual abuse; depression and Cancer.These obstacles in her life kept her under an ugly mask and in bondage for years. However, knowing the hand of God was always in her life-He protected her under the shadow of His wings. After years of seeking an intimate relationship with the Lord, it is now time for the ugly mask to come off. The truth will be exposed in order to set her free of the chains that kept her bound for years. The Prophetess exposes the lies, deceit and deception of the enemy. Her soul now walks with the mask off and dwells in the marvelous light. Her powerful testimony can help others understand that the enemy wants to keep the hidden, dark secrets unexposed and buried inside in order to keep you in bondage forever.
Ancient Wisdom Reveals the Deep Mystery of Who We Really Are Ancient wisdom found in one of the oldest, most revered pieces of literature of all time that maps out who each of us really is at our core. Now, for the first time ever, we go deeper as David B Whitacre unpacks this wisdom and gives us an intimate view into the Seven Gifts.
Who are you, truly?
What is the motivating undercurrent in your life?
Is there a different, better way to view humanity?
Whitacre entertains as he takes us on a compelling journey through his upbringing and beyond, leading to how he discovered his connection to this life-changing knowledge, and demonstrates along the way that he is a Master (American) Storyteller.
Nobody’s Child: A Biography is an urban drama. It takes place in the Brooklyn, Queens & Harlem sections of New York City, from the beginning of the Second Great Migration to the present day. It is a family drama rooted in the life experiences of a mother, my mother Brenda. It’s about overcoming drug addiction, complicated black family dynamics, surviving domestic violence, and the healing of family trauma. It’s about choices parents make and how those choices affect their children and everyone else around them. And, It’s also about secrets kept and the far-reaching, dysfunctional affects those secrets have on families. Finally, it’s about LOVE. Love between mothers and daughters, mothers and sons, love between women, sisters and friends, husbands and wives and fathers and their daughters.One thing is certain… no life is perfect. This story is about imperfect lives, the ones lived by my family, mainly my mother – a most beautiful, God-fearing soul.
I Had A Secret for Seventeen Years is the redemptive life story of Tori Shaw, centered around her abortion as a teenager. She spent years covered by guilt and shame while enduring continual abandonment and rejection. Childhood experiences taught her to hide hardship, so she silently dealt with depression, fear, anxiety, self-loathing, and addictions. After hiding her dark secret for seventeen years, Tori shares her story with the world. A woman who once walked in fear and self-doubt is now willing to go wherever God wants her to go. Through Tori’s story, God builds a ministry that helps abortion-minded women choose life for their babies and shares God’s forgiveness and love with post-abortive women. I Had a Secret for Seventeen Years enables the reader to see a post-abortive woman come full circle and embrace the world of possibilities God makes available to those who are willing.
As an only child isolated within a troubled family, F. Scott Service found solace in fantasy and imagination, until a fateful day led to the discovery of his father's Korean War field jacket hidden in a closet. What began as innocent emulation and approval, eventually spiraled into the calamitous loss of everything he had built as an adult. Faced with a grievous divorce, post-traumatic stress, homelessness, substance abuse, and the failure of everything he had willed himself to believe was truth, one night communing with a loaded pistol became the mechanism for self-clarity. From that darkest time, only elemental deconstruction and reconstruction of identity would allow him to forge a reclamation with his true, original self.
Visceral, with breathtaking candor, Playing Soldier powerfully captures the unlearning of expectation, the celebration of individuality, and the nourishing of self-acceptance once buried by cultural stamps of approval and societal convention. Braided with humor, courage, fear, despair, and hope, his unflinching, evocative story of passage into adulthood, the Iraq War, and beyond, speaks to anyone who has confronted adversity from without and grappled for their dreams from within.
This book picks up where Rose’s last book left off. If Go Forward, Support! was all about staying a child as long as possible, this book is all about being an adult. Started many years ago and finished in 2020, with the world on the brink of a global pandemic, this book’s messages of hope and happiness are perhaps needed now more so than ever before. The Happy Clam scales the realms of happiness - physical, intellectual, emotional, relational, spiritual - bringing together findings from across the fields of psychology and philosophy, with practical advice on how to apply them and be happier. It turns out there are a thousand little things we can do to invite a little more happiness into our lives, to nudge the needle a tick or two, but only a few things that really make a difference. Why happy clam? Just as clams are filter feeders, taking in nourishment from what’s in the passing current, Rose has taken in all the bits and bytes of daily news, research, and experience, and stitched them together to create a delicately-crafted mosaic rich in hope and inspiration. The book also shares deeply personal experiences, with both humor and gravity in the face of loss, along with serving up some favorite family recipes.
Featured by Yahoo! Finance, Advertising Week, Thrive Global, Booklist Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Market Watch and multiple affiliates of CBS, Fox and NBC awarded BlueInk Review Notable Book Seal and IndieReader Approved Designation, this non-fiction business and self-help creativity guide encourages innovation in aspiring entrepreneurs and business leaders. Have you ever looked at a product and thought, 'Why didn't I think of that?' or, 'I'm just not a creative person!' Improve problem-solving skills and increase the effectiveness of knowledge management in your organization to come up with the next game-changing idea to hit the market!
In this book you will:
Learn how others innovate by examining the world around them
Practice asking questions, and see how to recognize details in observations
Complete creative exercises to get into the right mindset
Understand the importance of sharing ideas, and assess their feasibility
Fueling You to Find: Your Next Big Idea
Are you ready? Click the purchase button above to get started.
In spring 1942, eighteen-year-old Bill Gemmill was eager to serve his country. After a recruiter stamped his paperwork “Deferred,” Bill reluctantly agreed to pursue a college football scholarship. It was the crash of a ferried bomber behind his frat house that changed his life and spurred him on to war.
Following fourteen months of training, Bill’s vision of fighting from the air finally took shape as his bombardier insignia was pinned by the girl he had to leave behind. Within a month, he and his crew were on their way to Southern Italy.
After more than twenty successful missions, on 22 November 1944, disaster struck: Bill and his crew were hit badly. Unable to re-cross the Alps, the decision was made to abandon ship. Parachuting into the Yugoslavian countryside, Bill found himself alone. Would he find his way back to Italy or end up in the hands of German allies? Would he be reunited with his crew? Ultimately, would he survive?
Stacey Simms' parenting philosophy is "not perfect, but safe and happy." Does that make her the world's worst diabetes mom? Some people on social media thought so. But her stories and the lessons they impart show that diabetes laughs in the face of perfection. Raising a happy and healthy child with type 1 diabetes, as well as any siblings, requires flexibility, planning, and a great sense of humor above all else. It's a journey full of challenges, but you are not alone!
In 2020, ISIS followers are being encouraged to use COVID-19 to sicken Westerners. An ISIS supporter attacked a Naval base in Corpus Christi, Texas. Iran and the United States exchanged blows in Iraq. We are still living in the long shadow of the Iraq War.
In 2006, David Grantham was fresh out of college and serving as a counterintelligence officer with the elite and secretive Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Iraq was veering toward civil war. The U.S. military desperately needed better on-the-ground intelligence to turn the tide. Grantham found himself in Kuwait and Afghanistan, then at Iraq’s infamous American prison, Camp Bucca. Not only was Bucca the breeding ground for the Islamic State, it was in southern Iraq, where America’s deadly fight with Iran was an open secret.
Consequences is both a riveting behind-the-scenes look at intelligence operations at the height of the Iraq war, and a charming and sobering story of one man’s journey through the pleasures and consequences that come with wartime intelligence.
Conquest is murder and theft. Conquerors are vicious criminals. Vicious criminals become kings. Kings designed civilization.
We are the products of civilization.
What if, before the modern period, all civilization was true crime?
Despite our romantic traditions, monarchs were never wise, just, nor generous. The briefest review of history shows that, without exception, kings were the most vicious criminals who ever lived. They were serial killers who preyed upon nations.
And the only path for survival in the ancient world required unquestioningly obeying— and blindly believing— anything the king said.
The revised and expanded third edition of Hot Talk, Cold Science forms the capstone of the distinguished astrophysicist Dr. S. Fred Singer's lucid, yet hard scientific look at climate change. And the book is no less explosive than its predecessors—and certainly never more timely.
Singer explores the inaccuracies in historical climate data and the failures of climate models, as well as the impact of solar variability, clouds, ocean currents, and sea levels on global climate—plus factors that could mitigate any human impact on world climate.
Singer's masterful analysis decisively shows that the pessimistic, and often alarming, global-warming scenarios depicted in the media have no scientific basis. In fact, he finds that many aspects of increased levels of CO2, as well as any modest warming, such as a longer growing seasons for food and a reduced need to use fossil fuels for heating, would have a highly positive impact on the human race.
The COVID-19 pandemic. The Great Recession. The dot-com bust. The early '90s recession. Every decade or so a disaster hits the United States and reminds us that many American families live one calamity away from financial ruin.
But what if there were a better way to help families protect themselves from life's risks? And what if that way did not further bloat large government bureaucracies and inflate even more their obscene budgets?
Fortunately, author, economist, policy entrepreneur, and Independent Institute Senior Fellow John C. Goodman, Ph.D., has forged just such a path.
In New Way to Care: Social Protections That Put Families First, Goodman offers a bold strategy for giving Americans more control over their destiny, while still promoting—at far less expense—the important social goals that gave rise to government safety-net programs in the first place.
Almost overnight a virus has brought into question America’s nearly 200-year-old government-run K-12 school-system—and prompted an urgent search for alternatives. But where should we turn to find them?
Enter James Tooley’s Really Good Schools.
A distinguished scholar of education and the world’s foremost expert on private, low-cost innovative education, Tooley takes readers to some of the world’s most impoverished communities located in some of the world’s most dangerous places—including such war-torn countries as Sierra Leone, Liberia, and South Sudan.
And there, in places where education “experts” fear to tread, Tooley finds thriving private schools that government, multinational NGOs, and even international charity officials deny exist.
Why? Because the very existence of low-cost, high-quality private schools shatters the prevailing myth in the U.S., U.K., and western Europe that, absent government, affordable, high-quality schools for the poor could not exist.
Do Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms? Or is this power vested solely in government? Recent years have seen a sea change in scholarship on the Second Amendment. Beginning in the 1960s, a view emerged that individuals had a “right” to bear arms only in militia service—a limited, "collective" right. But in the late 1980s Dr. Stephen Halbrook and a handful of other scholars began producing an altogether persuasive analysis that changed thinking on the matter, so that today, even in canonical textbooks, bearing arms is acknowledged as an individual right.
Stephen Halbrook’s The Founders’ Second Amendment is the first book-length account of the origins of the Second Amendment, based on the Founders’ own statements as found in newspapers, correspondence, debates, and resolutions. Dr. Halbrook investigates the period from 1768 to 1826, from the last years of British rule and the American Revolution through to the adoption of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and the passing of the Founders’ generation. His book offers the most comprehensive analysis of the arguments behind the drafting and adoption of the Second Amendment, and the intentions of the men who created it.
A wayward descendant of Mexico's national hero, a femme fatale who recites poems in cantinas, a Tunisian prostitute in Barcelona, a Spanish psychiatrist who fights brave bulls, the wise owner of the world's oldest restaurant. They are just a handful of the characters portrayed in VIDAS: Deep in Mexico and Spain, the first travel memoir to explore Mexico and Spain with the perspective of an American and the knowledge of an insider.
VIDAS: Deep in Mexico and Spain is a passage from adolescence to maturity, a tribute to nature and the open road, an exaltation of love, food and wine, a journey from the tender, mortal flesh to the luminous world of the spirit. It is also travel writing at its best, an evocation of peoples, places and rituals seldom glimpsed by natives or foreigners.
"If you are seventeen, at large in Mexico, seeing new things and learning every hour, any cheap dive, any impulse or encounter is pure as the snows on Popocatepetl, stained by hot ashes."
A Soldier's Tale of Combating Hangovers: Debauchery Before the Internet is the funniest damn book you'll ever read about the military. S.D. Turner, in his debut memoir, brilliantly captures the mood and spirit of life in the early 1990s. After signing up for the Army's delayed entry program at sixteen years old, he found himself at Kentucky's Fort Knox a week after his eighteenth birthday. As a new recruit, the story starts with him running from irate drill sergeants and ends with him running from 1,800-pound angry bulls in the cobbled streets of Pamplona, Spain.
Part One follows his 4-month training cycle where the recruits are at the hands of the drill sergeants and every torturous, but funny punishment they can dole out. Having come from a long line of service members, S.D. Turner breaks down the hysterical irony of it all in perfect fashion, as he masterfully puts the encoded world of the military into a language that civilians will understand and service members, young and old, will appreciate. It's a page-turner that will have you wanting more.
The small things that had great historical consequences…
“Heart-stopping, compelling, and fun!”—Win Blevins, New York Times Bestselling Author
How often does it happen that a single tiny mistake causes an entire civilization to collapse? More often than you think! Readers of Jared Knott's book, Tiny Blunders/Big Disasters, will be amazed at the little things that changed history in a big way. Here are a few examples:
A single document poorly designed by one single clerk in one single county changed the outcome of a presidential election and led directly to a major war.
A soldier accidentally kicks a helmet off of the top of a wall and causes an empire to collapse.
A small mechanical device several inches long fails to function, which changes the outcome of WWII and leads to the death of millions of people.
A man fails to gather his army in time to defend against an attack because of the temptation of opium and a young slave woman.
Dancing in the Narrows chronicles a mother and daughter’s multiyear journey through illness and trauma. At sixteen, Anna’s youngest daughter, Dana, is stricken with a mysterious and debilitating condition, eventually diagnosed as Lyme disease. Desperate to find a cure, the two women are thrust into the established medical world, then far beyond. Full of adventure, humor, and blind faith, Dancing in the Narrows is an inspiring story of self-discovery as a single mother fights to save the life of her child.
What if remembering one simple choice is all it takes to lead the life you want?
In The Forgotten Choice: Shift Your Inner Mindset, Shape Your Outer World, global leadership coach and motivational author Brenda Bence reminds you of a little-known decision you make every moment that either holds you back or opens doors to unlimited possibility.
In this groundbreaking mindset book, Brenda opens up about how her life transformed dramatically once she started remembering this choice. She then shared her discovery with friends, family, employees, and eventually with coaching clients and thousands of audience members around the world--resulting in incredible outcomes for people from all walks of life. Now, she makes this same, proven wisdom available to you in this powerful, step-by-step book that will change your mindset and motivate you to change your life.
It's 1973. Our nation is torn apart by the Vietnam War, and the massacre of unarmed students at Kent State. The Vice President has resigned for bribery and tax evasion. The President is being investigated for engaging in criminal activity. At twenty-three, David Reed has become embittered by political strife and corruption. Disenchanted with his future, he wants out. Along with new friends Rusty and Susie, David leaves everything he knows to cross the United States with little more than his bicycle and camera. The trio gets more than they bargain for, with menacing animals, extreme weather, and astonishing encounters. Uphill and Into the Wind recounts an odyssey that spans 5420 miles on bicycles. It chronicles the sudden and surprising glories of nature, the raw beauty of the land, and the majesty of the mountains. But that is just the start. Through it all, the three are changed forever, in ways they did not expect, by their long journey into the unknown.
From author Cindy Collins comes an unblinkingly honest, poignant, and often heartbreaking firsthand account of what it’s like to live with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) . . . and the pervasive trauma she endured as a child that led to her descent into the dark world of BPD. Gaslighted by her mother—who cultivated an outward appearance of being the perfect wife and mother—Cindy suffered ongoing sexual abuse by multiple family members, abandonment, and cruelty at the hands of the one person who should have loved and protected her most. The resulting fits of rage, extreme thinking, difficulty maintaining relations, and depression would set Cindy on a path of destruction until she finally found the hope and courage to fight her demons.
Chronicling her childhood of abuse, her diagnosis of BPD in her twenties, and her ultimate road to recovery, Born Under the Gaslight is a memoir like none you have ever read before. Offering a rare and insightful glimpse into the inner struggles of someone who lives with BPD, Born Under the Gaslight is a must-read for therapists, others living with BPD, and anyone wanting to understand the complexities of BPD and how to offer practical and emotional support.
More than nine million soldiers died in World War I. At the same time, a US-led effort saved nearly ten million civilians from starvation behind the lines during the German occupation, yet one of America’s greatest humanitarian efforts is virtually unknown today. In this gripping book, Jeffrey B. Miller tells the remarkable history of two American and Belgian citizen-created organizations that led a massive food relief program for civilians trapped in German-occupied Belgium and northern France.
Herbert Hoover, then a successful international businessman, was the driving force behind the effort, coercing and bullying the governments of Germany, Great Britain, France, and the United States to allow a group of idealistic young volunteers to organize in occupied Belgium and coordinate the distribution of tons of food and clothing to desperate Belgians. These crusaders, known as CRB delegates, had to maintain strict neutrality as they watched the Belgians suffer under the harsh German regime. Miller tells compelling stories of German brutality, Belgian relief efforts, and the idealistic Americans who went into German-occupied Belgium from October 1914 up to May 1917, when they were forced to leave after the April entry into the war of the United States.
Dealing with life's problems both with your usual coping mechanisms and God? Learn techniques to open your imagination and command God's promises into your reality!
Surviving through any means necessary while still going to God simultaneously, hoping something will work? This easy-to-read, uplifting, and enjoyable story entertains while including explained step-by-step self-help encouragement toward a victorious life. It is full of understanding, life lessons, simple applications, and empathy. Engage in a journey that provides choice and superior love when the oppressive narrowness of hardships teaches the very opposite.
Life is constantly changing, and Teri is struggling to keep up with the various demands of her new realities. The stability of her career is questionable, as her employer focuses on restructuring. Motherhood is altered with an impending divorce. Climaxing within the hardest lows of her existence, a misrepresentation loosens the thread that was keeping everything together. Catapulted into uncertainty, Teri crumbles under the pressure. But with the help of Sister Kelly, Teri uncovers new realities, fueling her imagination. Refocusing her energy to create positive possibilities and new perspectives is working, but can simple instructions really fix everything?
This book has been awarded a Certificate of Merit by the Illinois State Historical Society.
Moral treatment, the vogue of early American psychology, freed the mentally ill of their chains. They were, however, still relegated to separate institutions, commonly called asylums, for at least a brief respite from the stressors that were thought to cause their madness. Did it work? Were the patients actually treated more humanely? The Untold History of the First Illinois State Hospital for the Insane tells the stories of the people who were subjected to this new treatment on the American Frontier. As author Dr. Joe Squillace shows, the institution first had great difficulty in getting established, but the town of Jacksonville, Illinois, where the Hospital was built, rallied to make it a more humane and person-centered institution. The Hospital’s leaders, too, attempted, within the constraints of their time, to treat their patients with respect. But, at a time when mental illness was still not well understood some patients were tortured and imprisoned, even though they were not insane, even by 19th century standards. What is revealed in Untold History is an institution that struggled, much like today’s institutions do, to address the needs of those living with mental illness, in a culture that did not understand it fully.
The purpose of this book is to provide concepts that can aid in humanity's growth as a whole, and help increase equality among all people. It is my understanding that we must work together as a human race to make a better world, through aiding subservient powers or poorer countries by giving them the resources to be able to produce the skills and intelligence necessary to be able to match the domineer. This book is forthrightly corresponding to the way most Afrcan countries lack the western world's benefits and ease of access to basic essentials, and dives into ways of implementing them little by little; its content will bring forth African society to become more industrialized, technical, and better positioned to take care of its citizens.
There are many teachings and stories in this book that brought about its title - 'The Outcomes of Civilization in Africa' - including hundreds of other interviews I had with African residents and abroad, as well as with friends from other developing nations. I went to great lengths to ensure the accuracy and thoroughness of this book.
Two sisters face identical nightmares when their sons are diagnosed with the same leukemia.
The boys’ fight to survive coincides with perhaps the most miraculous medical story of the twentieth century. When doctors adopted a revolutionary approach to clinical trials, they not only developed a cure for childhood leukemia, they established the foundation of chemotherapy treatment as it is known today.
In Trials, Bradley uses the personal journals of his wife and her sister to guide readers though a world where toxic, experimental treatments were given to children by doctors who wondered at times if they were doing more harm than good. More than one hundred interviews with physicians, nurses, and parents of children with cancer further illuminate this story. Trials will leave you wondering, “Could I do that? Do I have that kind of courage?”
Given the changes in our climate and growth in human population, animals are increasingly forced to adapt to human behavior in unexpected ways. Whether it’s crocodiles using pool noodles as flotation devices, coyotes becoming more nocturnal to avoid people, or a huddle of walruses sinking a research vessel that invaded their territory, animals are figuring our how to navigate the world we have created. The Field Guide to Animal Adaptations, which identifies and illustrates 16 examples of this phenomenon, providing both hope and despair for the coexistence of people and animals in the future.
Approximately 80 percent of Americans admit they haven't read the Bible. If they did, they'd be pleasantly surprised by its impressive quantity of sex and poop jokes.
David danced naked. Noah was basically a moonshining hillbilly. Ezekiel baked poop bread. Herod was eaten by worms. Jesus cursed a fig tree, just to prove he could. Mark went streaking. Hosea married a prostitute. Lot was date-raped by his own daughters.
It turns out, there's a lot of weird stuff in the Bible. Murder-Bears, Moonshine, and Mayhem is a tongue-in-cheek look at all of it. From Elisha, who loosed homicidal bears on some kids because they called him bald (it's a long story), to the story of Ehud, who gets away with assassinating a tyrannical king because his servants think said king is taking a dump (also a long story), this book examines and casts new light on some of the Bible's stranger moments.
Organized by topic (poop, genitalia, weird violence, prostitution, gratuitous nudity, seemingly pointless miracles, and other fun stuff), Murder-Bears, Moonshine, and Mayhem is a thoroughly researched (really!), reverent, and insightful look at the best-selling book in history.
Dance provides a way to travel far beyond the typical tourist experience. By connecting with local people through a shared love of movement, dancers catalyze many unique opportunities. They build cross-cultural friendships with dance as the only shared language, discover ways to train with celebrated teachers, experience cultural immersion key to their personal development, and more. In this anthology, you'll find stories from renowned performers, dance educators, and other avid dance adventurers. Their tales about epic dance adventures across North America, Europe, South America, Asia, and Africa highlight various dance traditions, as well as unique aspects of each country's geography, history, demographics and educational systems. In this way, Dance Adventures celebrates the power of dance to connect us to the best parts of humanity, as well as to the best parts of ourselves.
As you delve into this poetic and photographic masterpiece, you are in for an inspiring double journey into the mysteries of Love and life. Outwardly you will travel through New England via the visual images of the mountain vistas, the riverbanks, and the coastlines. This stunning visual imagery captures all four seasons in New England as well as the whole diurnal and nocturnal span.
When He Was Anna: A Mom's Journey Into the Transgender World is a mother's brutally honest story of the stress and confusion that consumed her family in the early years of her child's transition from female to male.
In the end, there is one certainty--the struggle is real; so is the love.
Finalist Best New Non-Fiction The 2020 Best Book Awards
Build a More Equitable World for Your Daughter
A world where your daughter can thrive. Today’s generation of feminist dads are raising confident, empowered daughters who believe they can achieve anything. But the world is still profoundly unequal for women and girls, with workplaces built by men for men, massive gender pay gaps, and deeply-ingrained gender stereotypes. Dads for Daughters: How Fathers Can Support Girls and Women for a Successful Feminist Future offers fathers guidance for building a world where their daughters can thrive.
Lean In for dads. The most successful leaders of all companies, from family businesses to lean startups, understand that leaders eat last. Your workplace can be a stage for the fight for equality and true leadership that empowers women. The guidance in this book will help you move from TED talks to daily action.
Finalist Best New Non-Fiction The 2020 Best Book Awards
Laura Huang, a preeminent Harvard Business School professor, shows that success is about gaining an edge: that elusive quality that gives you an upper hand and attracts attention and support. Some people seem to naturally have it. Now, Huang teaches the rest of us how to create our own from the challenges and biases we think hold us back, and turning them to work in our favor.
How do you find a competitive edge when the obstacles feel insurmountable? How do you get people to take you seriously when they're predisposed not to, and perhaps have already written you off?
Laura Huang has come up against that problem many times--and so has anyone who's ever felt out of place or underestimated. Many of us sit back quietly, hoping that our hard work and effort will speak for itself. Or we try to force ourselves into the mold of who we think is "successful," stifling the creativity and charm that makes us unique and memorable.
Finalist Best New Non-Fiction The 2020 Best Book Awards
The mighty, iconic A-10 Warthog was first thrust into battle in Operation Desert Storm. The men who took it through walls of flak and surface-to-air missiles to help defeat the world's fourth-largest army were as untested as their airplanes, so they relied on personal determination and the amazing A-10 to accomplish their missions, despite the odds.
Hogs in the Sand is the gripping journey of one of those pilots as he fights an increasingly terrifying war, all the while attempting to win over a woman and keep control of his internal demons. For anyone who has admired the Warthog, seen it in action, or called upon it to be their salvation, this story will fulfill a desire to virtually strap into the cockpit, while gaining unprecedented understanding of the mind of a modern combat pilot.
Finalist Best New Non-Fiction The 2020 Best Book Awards
How does a mother cope when her baby is diagnosed with a rare medical condition resulting in daily seizures, brain tumors, developmental delay, and constant hospital admissions? She chooses to challenge the doctors, the insurance companies and the schools to give Tiara the best possible life, while caring for her other two healthy daughters. Just when you think this family cannot endure another trauma, they do and they respond with love and grace. Tiffani's story of unconditional love, unimaginable challenges, and ultimately triumph, is a compelling one, which will take hold of your heart and not let go. Loving Tiara is an inspiring story which leaves you in awe with the power of the human spirit.
Finalist Best New Non-Fiction The 2020 Best Book Awards
Award-winning investigative reporter Matthew Schwartz was ordered to lie on TV in the name of sensationalism. He was arrested for trespassing on the property of a business he exposed for committing fraud. A target of one of his investigations swung a baseball bat at his head. He's been shoved, sued, and cursed out. He caught a car dealership rolling back odometers and selling used cars as new. In Confessions of an Investigative Reporter, this veteran journalist reveals his inner thoughts and the inside stories viewers never saw. Confessions of an Investigative Reporter is funny, fast-moving, and dishy. It provides a rare look inside the world of local news from someone who spent four decades in it. It's not only for news viewers. It's for anyone who cares about justice and their community. And about that time he was ordered to lie? His answers lie within.
Finalist Best New Non-Fiction The 2020 Best Book Awards
Finalist Best Interior Design The 2020 Best Book Awards
Whether you’re a devotee of presidential history, a lover of wine, or both, Wine and the White House: A History is sure to prove informative and entertaining. The first book of its kind, it is a comprehensive journey through the history of White House hospitality that explores every president’s experience of wine. The fully illustrated pages also feature memorable presidential toasts, menus from historic White House gatherings, a catalog of vintages served, and spectacular new photography of the White House glassware collection. Early presidents recognized the important function wine played in entertaining at the White House. While some appreciated and enjoyed wine, others considered it merely a ceremonial necessity. Still others campaigned to outlaw wine and banned it from the White House; their successors celebrated its return. More recently, all presidents, regardless of whether they enjoyed wine themselves, have used the White House as a venue to showcase the fine wines produced in the United States.
Finalist Best Cover Design: Non-Fiction The 2020 Best Book Awards
TWO MEN—A WILD STALLION—A PHOTOGRAPH THAT CHANGED THEIR LIVES FOREVER
ON THE MORNING OF JULY 12, 1945, as residents of Rawlins, Wyoming were waking up to an article about rounding up wild horses with an airplane, a palomino stallion was losing his fight for freedom at the hands of a wrangler known as Frank “Wild Horse” Robbins, the man featured in that article. Knowing a wild palomino was rare, Robbins sent for photographer Verne Wood to capture the animal on film.
Forty years later, a question from a daughter to her father about that very photograph would set the man on a sixteen-year journey to find the truth. He would discover that Woods took a one-in-a-million photograph; one that won a prestigious contest, the winning of which set the horse—and the two men—on a rollercoaster ride toward destiny. As the photo gained fame worldwide—appearing in the Wyoming State Capitol, the United States Senate Chambers, the House of Commons in London, and the Canadian Parliament in Toronto—the horse became the star of a film nominated for an Academy Award. All while Robbins and Wood battled for ownership of the photo and its copyrighted name, resulting in one of the most unique Solomonesque rulings ever handed down by a court.
Finalist Best Cover Design: Non-Fiction The 2020 Best Book Awards
Calm Down Lift Up into Joy, Peace and Creativity offers essential direction to a world hungry for the message in the title. With challenging events unfolding around the world it is crucial to learn to come to peace. Now, more than ever, we need access to our inner wisdom as we reinvent ourselves out of current circumstances. We learn to Calm Down so we can Lift Up into our greater selves, not only for the sake of our own well-being, but in doing so, we make a contribution to the world we live in.
Even in the midst of chaos, to be effective, you must slow down and find quiet. Get off the hamster wheel. Come back to the stillness within. Lift up into peace. Peace is powerful.
Staying calm is a deep human desire. We long to be at peace with our circumstances. Yet life agitates and disturbs. It always has. Learning how to calm down and remain calm longer is an essential life skill. Especially in a world that is uncertain.
Finalist Best Cover Design: Non-Fiction The 2020 Best Book Awards
Finalist Best Interior Design The 2020 Best Book Awards
Richly illustrated with historical photographs and paintings, Spirit of the Indian Warrior presents the thoughts of some of history's greatest warriors and tribal leaders. It offers an intimate window into the cultural values of courage, loyalty, and generosity.
When the first Europeans landed in North America, its native peoples faced a challenge unlike any before. Many warriors and chiefs vowed, like Tecumseh, “to resist as long as I live and breathe.” Some eventually accepted treaties of peace, but they soon found, like Chief Joseph, that these were worth little: “What treaty that the whites have kept has the red man broken? Not one. What treaty that the whites ever made with us red men have they kept? Not one.”
Finalist Best Cover Design: Non-Fiction The 2020 Best Book Awards
Productivity Meets Purpose—Discover a Powerful Nine-Step Method to Start Finishing the Work That Matters Most
How much of your time and attention lately has been focused on things that truly matter to you?
Most people's honest answer is: not enough.
Everyone is buried by busywork, responsibility, distraction, and fatigue.
The joy-producing, difference-making ideas are waiting for when the time is right, when the current project is over, when they have a little more money, when the kids are grown, or when they get a more understanding boss. They are waiting for someday.
The trouble is someday never comes on its own.
Start Finishing presents a nine-step method for converting an idea into a project by addressing the challenges you'll face and getting the project on a reality-based schedule.
Finalist Best Cover Design: Non-Fiction The 2020 Best Book Awards
In War and the Rogue Presidency, Ivan Eland shows that almost immediately after the nation’s founding, starting with the first presidency of George Washington, the executive’s role in defense and foreign policy began expanding past what the framers of the Constitution had envisioned. The Constitution enshrined Congress as the dominant branch of government, giving Congress, not the President, most of the powers in defense and foreign policy. This comprehensive book shows how the presidential aggrandizement of greater powers has only been possible because of congressional abdication. However, this expansion of the executive’s role was still relatively contained until the Cold War when undeclared, permanent war became ongoing policy, and then the post-9/11 war on terror dramatically expanded the President’s role. Such expansion has had deleterious effects on U.S. foreign policy abroad, as well as a major erosion of the republic, its security at home, and the liberties of American citizens.
Finalist Best Interior Design The 2020 Best Book Awards
This book serves as a treasure map to find the visual and poetic delights that give Vermont its reputation as a haven for the soul. Like the intensity of fresh love where the lover thinks of the beloved night and day, Jon Meyer’s Love Poems From Vermont: Reflections On An Inner And Outer State will last long after you put it down and prompt you to pick it up again.
This stunning book contains 66 poignant poems, each imbedded in a photo image of a beautiful place in Vermont. The poems came first, then over the last 16 years the author searched for the right photo image of Vermont for each poem.
