Now the coauthor of the classic bestseller Final Gifts passes along the lessons she has learned from the experts—her patients. Here is the guide we all need to understanding the special needs of the dying and those who care for them. In her work with thousands of families, Maggie Callanan has witnessed the tears, the love—and the confusion and conflict—this final passage can evoke. Now, with honesty, compassion, and even humor, she empowers patients and their families to write the last chapter of their lives with less fear, less pain, and more control—so that all involved can focus their energies on creating the best possible ending. From supporting a husband or wife faced with the loss of a spouse, to helping a dying mother prepare her children to carry on without her, Callanan’s poignant stories illustrate new ways to meet the physical, emotional, and spiritual challenges of this difficult and precious time. She brings welcome clarity to medical and ethical concerns, explaining what to expect at every stage. Each brief chapter also conveys a home truth about making crucial treatment decisions, supporting the patient’s dignity and individuality, and lightening the burden on caregivers. Final Journeys is designed to be your companion, resource, and advocate. From diagnosis through the final hours, it will help you keep the lines of communication open, get the help you need, and create the peaceful end we all hope for.From the Hardcover edition.

    Now Amy lies somewhere between life and death. Erin and her parents must find the courage to accept that Amy's life support system will never bring her back. Can Amy's dying become hope for someone else's living?Time to Let GoThe doctors assure Erin Bennett and her parents that they can't find any physical cause for her headaches, but the throbbing, violent pain is so intense that Erin knows she needs help. Even landing the lead in the senior musical opposite David Delvin doesn't give her much pleasure. The headaches started just after the death of Erin's younger sister Amy. Erin thought her grieving was over. A therapist begins to help her deal with the pain, but what is it about David that triggers Erin's violent reaction.

    It is an appreciation of the time they shared together, and a heartbreaking account of the progression of her illness. Including early love notes, simple and poetic postcards, tales of their travels together in written and comics form, journal entries and drawings done in the hospital during her final days, and a beautifully rendered tear-jerking account of Weaver's memorial, Don't Go Where I Can't Follow is a deeply personal romance, and a universal reminder of our mortality and the significance of the relationships we build.

    From the end of a relationship to the meaning behind its title, this anthology continually surprises and subverts, utilizing topics such as alien intelligence, reincarnation, imaginary children, and even conversations with Hitler’s childhood pet. Engaging and diverse, this compendium offers a fascinating perspective on mortality.

    In the summer of 1955, fourteen-year-old Clement enters a general store in Money, Mississippi to purchase a soda.  Unaware of the consequences of flouting the rules governing black-white relations in the South, this Chicago native defies tradition, by laying a dime on the counter and turns to depart.  Miss Cuthbert, the store attendant, demands that he place the money in her hand, but he refuses, declaring, "I ain't no slave!" and exits with a sense of entitlement unknown to black people at the time.  His behavior results in his brutal murder.  This event sparks a war in Money, forcing the black community to galvanize its strength in pursuit of equality.

    Using humorous analogies and his profound understanding of the Western mind, Dzogchen Ponlop makes the mysterious Tibetan teachings on the bardos--the intervals between waking and sleep, between life and death, and beyond--completely available to the modern reader. Drawing on a breathtaking range of material, this young, popular teacher shows us how the bardos can be used to conquer death. Working with the bardos means taking hold of life and learning how to live with fearless abandon, and Mind Beyond Death demonstrates that the secret to a good journey through death and beyond lies in how we live. Walking skillfully through the bardos of dream, meditation, and daily life, we then travel deep into the mysterious death intervals and become familiar with their dazzling mindscape. This tour de force gives us the knowledge to transform the greatest obstacle of death into the most powerful opportunity for enlightenment.

    10-minute foreword recorded especially for the 10th Anniversary of the publication of TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE.Recorded by the Author.

    Despite knowing that one misstep could send him spiraling to his death, he moves forward, and upon finally reaching the top, Mori experiences a sense of fulfillment. That feeling, which seems to be telling him, "You're alive!" gives birth to an adrenaline for rock-climbing.*From volume 4 on, Sakamoto Shinichi has done both story and art. 17 Volumes (Complete) Associated names:孤高の人孤高之人고고한 사람AscensionKoko no HitoThe Climber

    Caregivers, friends, and family members are provided with valuable insights into the power of the Catholic faith and prayer in ministering to a dying person. Poetic, practical, and credible, this book is an invaluable guide for anyone who accompanies others during their final pilgrimage here on earth--and helps in their birthing to eternal life.

    Environmental journalist Mark Harris examines this new green burial underground, leading you into natural cemeteries and domestic graveyards, taking you aboard boats from which ashes and memorial "reef balls" are cast into the sea. He follows a family that conducts a home funeral, one that delivers a loved one to the crematory, and another that hires a carpenter to build a pine coffin.In the morbidly fascinating tradition of "Stiff, Grave Matters" details the embalming process and the environmental aftermath of the standard funeral. Harris also traces the history of burial in America, from frontier cemeteries to the billion-dollar business it is today, reporting on real families who opted for more simple, natural returns.For readers who want to follow the examples of these families and, literally, give back from the grave, appendices detail everything you need to know, from exact costs and laws to natural burial providers and their contact information.

    A national monument in the truest sense, Arlington's solemn beauty embraces a brave legacy-a heritage remembered and renewed every day as the military buries its own.Bittersweet, breath-taking, sometimes heart-wrenching, always deeply respectful, this commemorative book guides readers gently over tree-lined slopes to share the ceremonies observed throughout the year, from the traditional wreath-laying on Memorial Day, which enshrines centuries of courage with a formality at once austere and profoundly emotional, to the moving graveside services that honor individual men and women who served our country. Captured in stunning color by a select group of gifted photographers, 220 unforgettable images create a portrait as poignant as it is proud.Archival photographs also trace the history of the cemetery from the early National Historic Monument, "Arlington House," to the eternal flame at the Kennedy grave to sections for the lost astronauts and victims of the 9/11 Pentagon attack. With an Introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Rick Atkinson, this lovely volume is both a fitting tribute and a stirring reminder of the values we Americans hold dear.

    Secret, the wife of Tarron, a cheating business-man is out to re-claim her son, and husband who left her for Victoria, a woman specializing in seducing men. Tarron eventually finds himself caught in a web of lies, seduction and deceit. While he fights his brother in a custody battle for a child that is potentially not his, and disputes embezzlement charges at work, his sweet Victoria is up to her old tricks again. No one knows Victoria's underhanded intentions until she does the unthinkable. When her scandalous sexual agenda is exposed, she has to come clean and choose her lover, which will cause problems for everyone.

    Gripping accounts of all known fatal mishaps in America's first protected land of scenic wonders

    That may seem a while ago but it won’t when it happens to you . . .”In this dramatic adaptation of her award-winning, bestselling memoir (which Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times called “an indelible portrait of loss and grief . . . a haunting portrait of a four-decade-long marriage), Joan Didion transforms the story of the sudden and unexpected loss of her husband and their only daughter into a stunning and powerful one-woman play.The first theatrical production of The Year of Magical Thinking opened at the Booth Theatre on March 29, 2007, starring Vanessa Redgrave and directed by David Hare.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    Members share how they have learned to acknowledge and accept these losses with the help of Al-Anon Family Groups.

    The Bible is a story, not a lexicon of systematic theological definitions. With this in mind, The Through New Eyes Bible Commentary Series builds on the foundational Biblical-theology work of James B. Jordan and other like-minded scholars in bringing you a set of commentaries that will help you read, teach and preach through the Bible while picking up on the rich symphonic themes and the literary symbolism of the Scriptures. Because they are written for thoughtful Christians without being overly academic, these commentaries will serve as valuable resources for family worship, Sunday school or Bible studies.

    Stunned and grieving, she decided to pursue her husband's dream of becoming a Unitarian minister, and eventually began working with the Maine Game Warden Service, which conducts the state's search and rescue operations when people go missing in the wilderness. Whether she is with parents whose 6-year-old daughter has wandered into the woods, or wardens as they search for a snowmobile rider gone under ice, or a man whose sister left an infant seat and a suicide note in her car by the side of the road, Braestrup provides solace, comfort, and spiritual guidance when it's needed most. And she comes to discover that giving comfort is both a high calling and a precious gift.In her account of her own life and the events of her unusual job, sometimes joyful, sometimes heartbreaking, Braestrup is warm, unsentimental ("No one is immune to the Plucky Widow story!" she acknowledges), and generous. Here If You Need Me is a funny, frank, and deeply moving story of faith and hope.

    As a scientist, this was difficult for him to accept: Wouldn't it be scientifically irresponsible of him to ignore the evidence of these stories? Faced with this dilemma, van Lommel decided to design a research study to investigate the phenomenon under the controlled environment of a cluster of hospitals with a medically trained staff.For more than twenty years van Lommel systematically studied such near-death experiences in a wide variety of hospital patients who survived a cardiac arrest. In 2001, he and his fellow researchers published his study on near-death experiences in the renowned medical journal The Lancet. The article caused an international sensation as it was the first scientifically rigorous study of this phenomenon. Now available for the first time in English, van Lommel offers an in-depth presentation of his results and theories in this book that has already sold over 125,000 copies in Europe.Van Lommel provides scientific evidence that the near-death phenomenon is an authentic experience that cannot be attributed to imagination, psychosis, or oxygen deprivation. He further reveals that after such a profound experience, most patients' personalities undergo a permanent change. In van Lommel's opinion, the current views on the relationship between the brain and consciousness held by most physicians, philosophers, and psychologists are too narrow for a proper understanding of the phenomenon. In Consciousness Beyond Life, van Lommel shows that our consciousness does not always coincide with brain functions and that, remarkably and significantly, consciousness can even be experienced separate from the body.

    SHIFTING BETWEEN MULTIPLE REALITIES A teenage girl consumed by guilt over her brother's death tries to find a universe in which he is still alive. Sticky notes rim the mirror in rainbow colors.  REMEMBER.  DON'T FORGET HIM.  READ THE NOTEBOOK.  Remember what?  Remember who?  And what's this about a notebook?  There's another note, bottom center of the mirror.  THE DREAMS ARE REAL. In an unconscious effort to find her dead brother, Kathleen slips between universes.  Choices begins in one dimension, then fractures into four distinct voices with every decision Kathleen/Kay/Kate/Kathy makes.

    Shattered perceptions and shards of narrative recount the events, from wreck through recovery and beyond. In lyric prose, the stories spiral back through generations to touch on questions of mortality and family, immigration and migration, legacies intended or inflicted. In the wake of her near-fatal cycling collision, Peggy Shumaker searches for meaning within extremity. Through a long convalescence, she reevaluates her family’s past, treating us to a meditation on the meaning of justice and the role of love in the grueling process of healing. Her book, a moving memoir of childhood and family, testifies to the power of collective empathy in the transformations that make and remake us throughout our lives. We all live with injury and loss. This book transforms injury, transforms loss. Shumaker crafts language unlike anyone else, language at once poetic and profound. Her memoir enacts our human desire to understand the fragmented self. We see in practice the power of words to restore what medical science cannot: the fragile human psyche and its immense capacity for forgiveness.

    It is from the stationery set I bought for her last Christmas. The scent still lingers. I inhale deeply, breathing in hope and joy, and pleasure that she has finally used my gift.Then I open it and the sweet smell of flowers turns sour. I feel sick. I want to vomit. The paper trembles in my hands. Is this a joke? My mother loves to joke, especially when she is the only one laughing.When Eve’s mother disappears, Eve’s dad and aunt tell her there’s no point talking about it. It’s best if we don’t, her dad tells her. Not to anybody. People don’t need to know the details. So, though Eve longs to visit her mother, she doesn’t. Instead, she tries to carry on as normal, cleaning and cooking for her dad, and going to school. She makes a new friend, Summer, who shows her how to do things she would never have done before. When her dad brings home his new girlfriend, Eve realises things are not going to return to normal. She finds ways of controlling the chaos around her and of controlling the mess her life has become. But will anything help?griEVE is a powerful story about coping with loss. It deals with confronting topics such as self-harm, depression, and dysfunctional families in an absorbing storyline which will draw young readers in. Eve is honest with the reader, even while she is not being honest with herself, and the reader is able to recognise the truth behind many of the events which Eve refuses to understand.This is the kind of novel which refuses to be put down, with the reader compelled to keep reading to find out what will happen to Eve, how she will find a way through the minefield of her life. Teenage girls especially will find it compelling.

    In a few hours, a series of catastrophic errors led to the entrapment and deaths of four members of the fire crew--two teen-age girls and two young men. Each had brought order and meaning to their lives by joining the fire world. Then the very flames they pursued turned on them, extinguishing their lives. When the victims were blamed for their own deaths, the charge brought a storm of controversy that undermined the firefighting community.Continuing a tradition established in his previous books, and by his father Norman's Young Men and Fire, John N. Maclean serves as an unflinching guide to the rogue fire's unexpected violence--which is almost matched by the passions released by the official verdict of the blaze. Weaving together the astonishing stories told by the witnesses, the victims' family members, and the official reports, Maclean produces a dramatic narrative of a catastrophe that has changed the way fire is fought. More than anything, it is a story of humanity at risk when wildfire, ancient and unpredictable, breaks loose

    The book blends Nilsen’s disparate styles, from the iconic simplicity and collaged drawings of his Monologues for the Coming Plague to the finely rendered Dogs and Water and Big Questions. Originally released in magazine form in 2007, The End has been updated and expanded to more than twice its original length, including a 16-page full-color section.

    In fact they even make a plan. Mike tells Corky that they will always do everything together—forever. It is their Forever Plan.And it works well. From one year to the next Corky is right there with Mike. Until one day, when Mike comes home from school and Corky isn't there . . . The story of how Mike comes to accept Corky's death forms a simple, poignant portrait of a special friendship that both celebrates the joys of owning a pet and becomes a heartfelt guide for anyone who is coping with the loss of a loved one.

     She lost her smile about a month ago. That was when her dad died.Samantha Jane misses her father very much. Sometimes the sadness feels so big she is afraid to let herself feel it. Sammy Jane is also worried about her mother, and whether they are all going to be happy again someday. But then she feels guilty. Is it right to feel happy when her father can't be here to enjoy life, too?The loss of a parent is a profound event for a child. In the aftermath of the death, children face great emotional vulnerability and distress and need help from their surviving parent and other supportive adults around them. Reassurance and support, as well as practical coping tools, are key to the child's ability to recover and lead a full and happy life. Samantha Jane's Missing Smile is the story of one child's loss.When her father dies, Sammy Jane doesn't know how to express her grief. She fears that her sadness will overwhelm her if she faces it. She worries that her sadness will overburden her mother, too, and that her mother won't be available for her. She is angry at the unfairness of her loss. And she feels guilty about the prospect of smiling ever again.In this gentle story, Sammy Jane learns to face her feelings and to realize that they won't go away if she ignores them. She also discovers that sharing those feelings is both comforting and reassuring. With her mother's help, she finds ways to keep the memory of her father alive. And finally, she understands that a full, happy life is what her father would want for her.A Note to Parents by Dr. Jane Annunziata describes the psychological issues that children confront when a parent dies, and offers guidance to the remaining parent for helping the child recover from this life-changing event.

    3 books.

    have waited their whole lives to win the basketball tournament at Rucker Park, where their favorite pro ballers squared off against street legends. But the day of their big game, J.R. is fatally stabbed—and it’s Mackey’s fault, even though he didn’t wield the knife. Now Mackey has a score to settle, but the killer is watching his every move.

    Detailing the challenges of reversing roles and learning to mother one's own mother, this refreshing and entertaining autobiography will help those struggling with their own decisions on elder care in the home. It touches on the importance of relationships—such as how they impact our souls and beliefs about ourselves and the quality of life—and explores the larger questions of faith, hope, and ultimately death.

    A chance encounter on less than pleasant terms teams her up with Feral, another lupian who happens to be a mute as well as one of the best mercenaries in the land, and who is not quite so welcoming of her forced company as she would like to believe. Fun, danger and plenty of humorous situations follow the two on their wayward adventures, however the seemingly peaceful world they reside in is not quite the paradise that its reputation makes it out to be. When a taboo topic and a dark secret collide, it may unravel their already tattered lives and force each of them to face the reality of the truth, requiring each to make decisions that could alter their lives forever.

    Though War is OldIt has notBecome wise.Poet and activist Alice Walker personifies the power and wanton devastation of war in this evocative poem.Stefano Vitale’s compelling paintings illustrate this unflinching look at war’s destructive nature and unforeseen consequences.

    None of us likes to think about what our last days will be like. But if we do think about them at all, we want them to be full of peace and tranquillity, with the chance to say proper goodbyes to those we love. Life in a Hospice takes you behind the scenes in end-of-life care, where you will see the enormous efforts of nurses, doctors, chaplains and others - even a thoughtful cook - to provide the calm that we all hope for. Perhaps you are looking for end-of-life care for someone you love. Perhaps you are wondering if this is the job for you. Or you just feel like being inspired by humanity at its best. This book will be for you. HIGHLY COMMENDED by the British Medical Association, 2008 "The simple reflections on complex areas of care resonate long after you have finished reading the book." Cancer Nursing Forum Newsletter, Royal College of Nursing "An easy-to-read book, which will surprise many readers with its lightness of touch, humanity and refreshing tone. I would recommend it to anyone who has worries about their own or a relative’s care at the end of life." Dr Nansi-Wynne Evans, GP, BMA Medical Book Competition

    They settled in Detroit, and with Josie's nine siblings, worked to create a home for themselves away from the poverty and servitude of the old country. Their descendants were proud Italian-Americans.But Josie had a sister nobody spoke of. Her name was Frances, and at age sixteen she fell in love with a young barber. Her father wanted her to marry an older don in the neighborhood mafia---a marriage that would give his sons a leg up in the mob. But Frances eloped with her barber, and when she returned home a married woman, her fate was sealed. Even eighty years and two generations later, Frances was not spoken of, and her memory was suppressed.Unto the Daughters is a historical mystery and family story that unwraps the many layers of family, honor, memory, and fear to find an honor killing in turn-of-the-century Detroit. Tracing the history and insular world of Italian immigrants back to the old country, Karen Tintori shows what they came from, what they hoped for, and how the hopes and dreams of America fell far short for her great-aunt Frances. "Nearly every family has a skeleton in its closet, an ancestor who "sins" against custom and tradition and pays a double price -- ostracism or worse at the time, and obliteration from the memory of succeeding generations. Few of these transgressors paid a higher price than Frances Costa, who was brutally murdered by her own brothers in a 1919 Sicilian honor killing in Detroit. And fewer yet have had a more tenacious successor than Frances's great-niece, Karen Tintori, who refused to allow the truth to remain forgotten. This is a book for anyone who shares the convinction that all history, in the end, is family history." -Frank Viviano, author of Blood Washes Blood and Dispatches from the Pacific Century "Switching back and forth between rural Sicily and early 20th century Detroit, Unto the Daughters reads like a nonfiction version of the film Godfather II--if it had been told from the point of view of a female Corleone. In exploring her own family's secret history, Karen Tintori gives voice not just to her victimized aunt but to all Italian-American daughters and wives silenced by the power of omerta. Half gripping true-crime story, half moving family memoir, Unto the Daughters is both fascinating and frightening, packed with telling details and obscure folklore that help bring the suffocating world of a Mafia family to life." --Eleni N. Gage, author of North of Ithaka

    When the Marines he accompanied reached the village, they ordered the civilians there to evacuate their homes—grass huts whose thatched roofs they set ablaze with Zippo lighters. Safer’s report on the event soon aired on CBS and was among the first to paint a harrowing portrait of the War in Vietnam. LBJ responded to the segment furiously, accusing Safer of having “shat on the American flag.” For the first time since World War II, American boys in uniform had been portrayed as murderers instead of liberators. Our perception of the war—and the Zippo lighter—would never be the same.But as this stunning book attests, the Zippo was far more than an instrument of death and destruction. For the American soldiers who wielded them, they were a vital form of social protest as well. Vietnam Zippos showcases the engravings made by U.S. soldiers on their lighters during the height of the conflict, from 1965 to 1973. In a real-life version of the psychedelic war portrayed in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, Sherry Buchanan tells the fascinating story of how the humble Zippo became a talisman and companion for American GIs during their tours of duty. Through a dazzling array of images, we see how Zippo lighters were used during the war, and we discover how they served as a canvas for both personal and political expression during the Age of Aquarius, engraved with etchings of peace signs and marijuana leaves and slogans steeped in all the rock lyrics, sound bites, combat slang, and antiwar mottos of the time.Death from Above. Napalm Sticks to Kids. I Love You Mom, From a Lonely Paratrooper. The engravings gathered in this copiously illustrated volume are at once searing, caustic, and moving, running the full emotional spectrum with both sardonic reflections—I Love the Fucking Army and the Army Loves Fucking Me—and poignant maxims—When the Power of Love Overcomes the Love of Power, the World Will Know Peace. Part pop art and part military artifact, they collectively capture the large moods of the sixties and the darkest days of Vietnam—all through the world of the tiny Zippo.

    It was appreciated and quoted by Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Ramana Maharshi, and Radhakrishnan, as it presents the traditional teachings of Advaita Vedanta with a clarity and power very rarely matched. It has been called 'a quantum leap into the absolute'. Its message is that there is neither existence nor non existence, right nor wrong, moral nor immoral. In the view of the sage Ashtavakra, the apparent author of this text, one's true identity can be found by simply recognising oneself as pure existence, or the awareness of all things.

    These documents are first-hand accounts by survivors of work camps, ghettos, forced marches, beatings, starvation, and disease. Collected under the direction of two renowned Soviet Jewish journalists, Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman, they tell of Jews who lived in pits, walled-off corners of apartments, attics, and basement dugouts, unable to emerge due to fear that their neighbors would betray them, as often happened.

    He adored his wife and didn't like anyone else around to claim her attention. Their sons saw him as a monster of egocentricity, a tyrant, a blustering bully; to her he was a sensitive, shy, helpless man with a mission. She believed in him from the moment they met, and under the wings of her faith in him as a philosopher, he became one.During their thirty years of marriage this woman's only concern was to enable her husband to hearken to "the voice of God."After his death she discovered somewhere deep inside a core of drop-forged steel. She rose to the challenge of widowhood and, continuing his work, took his place in the world. The full splendor of this tiny, frail woman's character, intelligence, and courage became evident during her World War II internment in a Japanese camp in the Dutch East Indies, when she managed to arrange a cease-fire between the Dutch Army and Indonesian guerillas.After her release from prison camp, she returned to Amsterdam, and resumed her simple life, offering spiritual advice to those seeking solace. Finally, she was faced with the ultimate test of her spirit: a diagnosis of a cancer too far advanced for treatment.De Hartog tells us how his mother's blazing courage through it all inspired his own spiritual awakening as he found, in her final months, the strength, the power, and the acceptance to see her through to the end.

    Grandpa has been gone for more than a year. Daysha sets out to cheer up Grandma by collecting things that can bring happy memories: a button that fell off Grandpa's coat, flowers from the field where she and Grandpa chased butterflies, Grandpa's old guitar. She places all of the objects near the back porch of Grandma's house. As Daysha had hoped, they bring back happy memories. Grandma agrees that this is the best way to remember Grandpa. Uma Krishnaswami's simple and heartfelt story is illustrated with loving care by Layne Johnson.

    Based on speaking engagements surrounding his critical passion and conviction that the church in this moment must set itself in tension with the rest of the world, these essays call the church to courageously defy political polarization, consumerism, and militarism.

    A high-stakes game is played on the set of a live-broadcast, reality-television show where guests are trapped for six months in a haunted mansion. Thousands of miles away, a psychopath is executed by lethal injection in California and dies with a secret that could save many lives. Only a comical detective who fears nothing—except his teenage daughters—can hope to understand what links these two seemingly unrelated crimes, without ever losing his zest for the game or his sense of humor.

    Haunted by guilt and grief, he leaves the girl he loves behind and travels west to make his living with his guns. But when he meets Savannah McKenzie again, a decade later, she sees past the hardened gunslinger he’s become, remembering the tender young man she fell in love with. Will her secrets give him the hope he needs, or destroy him forever?

    A police officer, left for dead in a hail of bullets, can golf and fish again; a woman, whose lungs were at one time so diseased that she was dependent on oxygen, has since climbed 5,000 feet to the summit of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park carrying a 25-pound backpack; a man who was fighting for his life went on to become an Olympic champion. On one side, they tell of transplanted human organs and tissue transforming lives and, on the other, the inspiring selflessness of the families who donated them at the bleakest moment of their lives. The Gift that Heals is published jointly by United Network for Organ Sharing (www.unos.org) and the Nicholas Green Foundation (www.nicholasgreen.org). It was written by Reg Green, the father of a seven-year-old California boy, Nicholas, who was shot in an attempted robbery while the family was on vacation in Italy. The story captured the imagination of the world when he and his wife, Maggie, donated their son's organs and corneas to seven Italians. United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) is the non-profit membership organization that administers the U.S. organ sharing system and focuses on increasing organ donation through technology, education and research. In 2001, UNOS created the National Donor Memorial (www.donormemorial.org) to celebrate and thank America's organ and tissue donors and their families. For information on registering to become an organ and tissue donor, please go to the Donate Life America website (www.donatelife.net) or call 800-355-7427.

    When you hear a certain song, where does it take you? What is the secret that connects music to our lives? Heart warming, moving and laugh out loud funny, this title is the truest book you will ever read about music and the things that really matter.

    If God exists, why doesn't he teach ants to swim?Kate also talks to God about Stephanie, the new girl in her class. Stephanie isn't the sort of girl Kate is usually friends with; she's too 'nerdy' for a start. And she looks weird, too. But getting to know Steph proves to be unexpectedly interesting for Kate, making her look at friendship in a new way.Things get serious when Steph becomes ill. Steph's a good person, so why isn't she getting better? But just when Kate's ready to give up on God, she finds the answers to her questions in an unexpected place.

    As an artist, Berman worked in relative obscurity up until his premature death, at the age of 50, in 1976. Since then, however, interest in his work, and recognition of its importance, have steadily increased. The subject of the recent--and highly lauded--traveling exhibition and accompanying catalogue, Semina Culture: Wallace Berman & His Circle, he was the central and binding figure in a diverse community of artists, poets, actors and musicians, and was revered for his wisdom as well as his achievements as an artist, publisher and filmmaker. However, until the 1999 discovery of an archive of his photographic negatives, very few people have known that Berman was also an extremely accomplished photographer. He documented the West Coast Beat culture of the 1950s, the first stirrings of the hippie culture that took root in the canyons of Southern California in the 60s and the diverse cast of characters who passed through his famously creative world with amazing intimacy and candor. Berman's photographs are gathered here for the first time ever.

    Death revealed the true patriot, the genuine philosopher, even, perhaps, the great artist—and certainly the faithful Christian. Catharine Edwards draws on the many and richly varied accounts of death in the writings of Roman historians, poets, and philosophers, including Cicero, Lucretius, Virgil, Seneca, Petronius, Tacitus, Tertullian, and Augustine, to investigate the complex significance of dying in the Roman world.Death in the Roman world was largely understood and often literally viewed as a spectacle. Those deaths that figured in recorded history were almost invariably violent—murders, executions, suicides—and yet the most admired figures met their ends with exemplary calm, their last words set down for posterity. From noble deaths in civil war, mortal combat between gladiators, political execution and suicide, to the deathly dinner of Domitian, the harrowing deaths of women such as the mythical Lucretia and Nero’s mother Agrippina, as well as instances of Christian martyrdom, Edwards engagingly explores the culture of death in Roman literature and history.

    Scholar, poet, novelist, and literary critic, Lang tirelessly collected magical stories from cultures all over the world—stories, according to Lang, that "have been inherited by our earliest civilised ancestors, who really believed that beasts and trees and stones can talk if they choose, and behave kindly or unkindly."The best single-volume collection of Lang's fairy tale classics available, The Rainbow Fairy Book includes "Hansel and Gretel," "Rapunzel," "Jack and the Beanstalk," "The Prince and the Dragon," "Rumpelstiltskin," "The Three Little Pigs," "Snow-White and Rose-Red," and other enduring fables of childhood. Lyrical and timeless, these are the stories that have captured the imaginations of children and adults alike for generations.

    By weaving the particulars of her own loss into a tapestry that also contains the elements common to all losses, Bang creates something far larger than a mere lament. Continually in search of an adequate metaphor for the most profound and private grief, the poems in Elegy confront, in stark terms and with a resilient voice, how memory haunts the living and brings the dead back to life. Within these intimate and personal poems is a persistently urgent, and deeply touching, examination of grief itself.

    These texts, dating from the late fifth century BCE to the second century CE, have been part of the scholarly debate on ancient afterlife beliefs since the end of the nineteenth century. Recent finds and analysis of the texts have reshaped our understanding of their purpose and of the perceived afterlife. The tablets belonged to those who had been initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus Bacchius and relied heavily upon myths narrated in poems ascribed to the mythical singer Orpheus. After providing the Greek text and a translation of all the available tablets, the authors analyze their role in the mysteries of Dionysus, and present an outline of the myths concerning the origins of humanity and of the sacred texts that the Greeks ascribed to Orpheus. Related ancient texts are also appended in English translations. Providing the first book-length edition and discussion of these enigmatic texts in English, and their first English translation, this book is essential to the study of ancient Greek religion.

    His commentary, however, is not merely a bare description of the sequence of events in the process of dying and death, but is underscored throughout with the purpose and urgency of aspiration. We are clearly instructed on what to practice and how to train ourselves at every point of opportunity, "whether in the waking state or the dream state" and even within the interval experience itself.

    But now that he had finally summoned her home at holiday time, his fragile health rendered him unable to speak. What had he wanted to tell her? Sarah's deepest desire was to be forgiven for the past. Yet part of that past--and the future she dreamed of--included her father's sworn enemy, darkly handsome Logan Carleton. A man who knew that when Sarah made things right with her heavenlyFather, all her Christmas wishes would come true.