Out of the blue she went from a fit, healthy, fun-loving wife and mother of two, to not knowing what had happened. Or why.Rushed to hospital by ambulance, it was discovered Julie had a malignant brain tumour. Diagnosed with Stage 4 Metastatic Advanced Melanoma, she was told to get her affairs in order because she didn't have long to live.After getting over the initial shock, Julie fought off the fear and started searching for hope. She found an American experimental drug trial, but was told there was only room for 70 patients and the numbers were full. Julie had promised her teenage daughters that she would find a way to 'fix it' so she refused to take no for an answer. Her tenacity paid off and she flew to Oregon and the Providence Cancer Center. She became PATIENT 71.Not everyone survives a cancer diagnosis. Julie is one of the lucky ones. She discovered that when you push the boundaries, refuse to give up and never lose sight of your goal... extraordinary things can happen.

    Challenged in school and growing up in a struggling family, Halle looked like every other kid who would leave high school in the 1940s and disappear into a factory.Instead, Halle created one of America’s most respected companies, rose to join the Forbes magazine list of the four hundred richest Americans and serve as the role model for the ordinary Joes who seek out success at Discount Tire Company.Six Tires, No Plan maps Halle’s journey out of poverty and failure and reveals the deceptively simple values that drive success for him, his company and thousands of employees. Key among those principles is Halle’s commitment to passing on his good fortune to the thousands of employees who serve his customers every day. This is Halle’s true passion, and paying it forward to the ordinary guy is a cornerstone of Discount Tire’s ongoing success.Avoiding the spotlight, crediting his employees for the success of the company, Halle demonstrates the incredible power of perseverance and fundamental values to create long-term success. His journey offers a roadmap worth following in both career and life.

    John Mack. This eminent Harvard psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer risked his career to investigate the phenomenon of human encounters with aliens and to give credibility to the stupefying tales shared by people who were utterly convinced they had happened.Nothing in Mack's four decades of psychiatry had prepared him for the otherworldly accounts of a cross-section of humanity including young children who reported being taken against their wills by alien beings. Over the course of his career his interest in alien abduction grew from curiosity to wonder, ultimately developing into a limitless, unwavering passion.Based on exclusive access to Mack's archives, journals, and psychiatric notes and interviews with his family and closest associates, The Believer reveals the life and work of a man who explored the deepest of scientific conundrums and further leads us to the hidden dimensions and alternate realities that captivated Mack until the end of his life.

    Every person, even the atheist, will admit that death is certain. Death, however, is not the last event in this life of ours. Immediately after death, we shall be judged and then again on the Day of Judgment when all humanity will know us for what we are. Too often the reality of Heaven and salvation are highlighted at the expense of the Church's teachings on Death, Judgment, Purgatory, and Hell. Yet, these important doctrines of the Church hold the truths of salvation truths that can lead us to Heaven or can pull us away from it. In these pages, Fr. Wade Menezes, EWTN television host and Assistant General of the Fathers of Mercy, shows us that God has not called us to His wrath, but to salvation. He shows us that Heaven and Hell, salvation and damnation, eternal life and eternal punishment are all complementary doctrines. They need each other to be complete and we must understand the Church's teachings on all of these doctrines in order to have a balanced view of the world. Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell these are the Four Last Things toward which we are moving each hour of the day and night. Read this book, and you'll have a firm grasp of one of the most important doctrines of Holy Mother Church that holds the truths of Heaven and our own salvation.

    He was called and anointed to reign in life, and yet he had to find a way in God to keep form losing it all. In What to Do on the Worst Day of Your Life,Brian Zahnd looks into the life of David to discover a pattern of faith we can apply to overcome life’s daunting obstacles. In David’s story we find a timeless model for how to encounter God’s restorative power in the midst of deep tragedy. Join Brian Zahnd, and see what David did on his worst day. You’ll see David weep but not get bitter. You’ll see him reorient his vision and regain his passion. All along the journey you’ll be reminded that God’s great work in David’s life was not an odd, one-off miracle but a pattern of faith for all who are facing the worst day of their life.

    Jane Tompkins' memoir shows how her education shaped her in the mold of a high achiever who could read five languages but had little knowledge of herself. As she slowly awakens to the needs of her body, heart, and spirit, she discards the conventions of classroom teaching and learns what her students' lives are like. A painful and exhilarating story of spiritual awakening, Tompkins' book critiques our educational system while also paying tribute to it.

    In this astonishingly frank autobiography, the Dalai Lama reveals the remarkable inner strength that allowed him to master both the mysteries of Tibetan Buddhism and the brutal realities of Chinese Communism.

    I’ve been lionized by the public and the press. The world is at my feet. I’ve spread my wings and here I am, soaring above everything and everyone. But in reality, the descent has already begun.” At age 20, Thomas Dekker was already earning €100,000 a year—as an amateur bike racer. The next year, he turned pro and his salary quadrupled then rose again to €900,000 as he established his position as a super-domestique among Europe’s wealthiest superteams. The sport marveled at Dekker’s rise as the young racer set his ambitions on capturing cycling’s biggest prizes for himself. Before long, though, Dekker found himself corrupted by money, dazzled by fame, and cracking under the relentless pressure to perform at a superhuman level. In his tell-all book DESCENT: My Epic Fall from Cycling Superstardom to Doping Dead End, Dekker reveals a sordid way of life full of blood bags, drugs, prostitutes, and money. DESCENT tells the story of a yearslong bender that exposes the brutal truth of his life as a professional cyclist. And Dekker is not alone; he names those who fell with him and those who aided in his downfall. In DESCENT, we take an unflinching look at the European peloton as it roars through its modern boom years—the height of the EPO era—and what we see is shocking. You won’t be able to turn away from this page-turning read about one man’s rise, fall, and redemption and what his story reveals about professional sports.

    How a man moved from a delinquet youth to an adult faith--and then on to the priesthood.

    Cathleen Medwick shows us a powerful daughter of the Church and her times who was a very human mass of contradictions: a practical and no-nonsense manager, and yet a flamboyant and intrepid presence who bent the rules of monastic life to accomplish her work--while managing to stay one step ahead of the Inquisition. And she exhibited a very personal brand of spirituality, often experiencing raptures of an unorthodox, arguably erotic, nature that left her frozen in one position for hours, unable to speak. Out of a concern for her soul and her reputation, her superiors insisted that she account for every voice and vision, as well as the sins that might have engendered them, thus giving us the account of her life that is now considered a literary masterpiece. Medwick makes it clear that Teresa considered her major work the reform of the Carmelites, an enterprise requiring all her considerable persuasiveness and her talent for administration. We see her moving about Spain with the assurance (if not the authority) of a man, in spite of debilitating illness, to establish communities of nuns who lived scrupulously devout lives, without luxuries. In an era when women were seldom taken seriously, she even sought and received permission to found two religious houses for men.        In this fascinating account Cathleen Medwick reveals Teresa as both more complex and more comprehensible than she has seemed in the past. She illuminates for us the devout and worldly woman behind the centuries-old iconography of the saint.From the Hardcover edition.

    And lived to tell about it.In this first-hand account, author Matthew Paul Turner shares amusing–sometimes cringe-worthy–and poignant stories about growing up in a fundamentalist household, where even well-intentioned contemporary Christian music was proclaimed to be “of the devil.”Churched is a collection of stories that detail an American boy’s experiences growing up in a culture where men weren’t allowed let their hair grow to touch their ears (“an abomination!”), women wouldn’t have been caught dead in a pair of pants (unless swimming), and the pastor couldn’t preach a sermon without a healthy dose of hellfire and brimstone. Matthew grapples with the absurdity of a Sunday School Barbie burning, the passionate annual boxing match between the pastor and Satan, and the holiness of being baptized a fifth time–while growing into a young man who, amidst the chaotic mess of religion, falls in love with Jesus.

    The Book of Giants, like the Book of Enoch, concerns itself with the Nephilim, which are the offspring of fallen angels, who are called the Watchers. Two main versions of the text exist. The Dead Sea version is written in Aramaic. Another version has been found written in middle Persian, adapted from the Aramaic to fit into the Manichean religion. Both versions will be examined. Following theories speculating that the Book of Giants was once part of the Book of Enoch, we will attempt to place the two texts back together to render the complete story of the Watchers and the Nephilim. We will discover the history and contributions of these ancient scrolls and look carefully at their content and meaning. Throughout the combined texts of the Book of Giants and the Book of Enoch we will examine all the biblical and apocryphal references and parallels within the text and compare passages from books such as Jubilees, Jasher, and other apocryphal works. The result is an in-depth and panoramic view of the Angels, the Watchers, and the Nephilim, and how one of the giants of the Nephilim race may have survived the flood intended to cleanse the Earth of their horror.

    Although she wasn't an advice column, she often was asked to field questions facing her readers, and to give her two cents worth. With the usual straightforwardness and gentle humor, she addresses the everyday struggles that face her readers. Whether deciding how much is proper to spend on a baptism or confirmation celebration, how to deal with a difficult family member or facing the challanges of relationships, Maeve pulls no punches. This book captures what makes Binchy a favorite of readers everywhere. She does not seem to be changed by the fame, or the money. She remains the good friend that you would go to to chat about a problem, or to share a drink. This is a hard book to find, I got the copy I read through a friend who had recently been to the UK. If you can find a copy, don't pass up the chance to read it.

    You are amazing. You have untapped potential in you that would blow your mind. — From the introduction. While the world increasingly seeks happiness in fads and self-help books—millions of us reaching upward every day toward some enlightened being that we wish to be—surfing icon Laird Hamilton is more intent on looking inward and appreciating the brilliant creature we already are. In LIFERIDER, Laird uses five key pillars – Death & Fear, Heart, Body, Soul, and Everything is Connected – to illustrate his unique worldview and life practices, offering inspiration to anyone who wants to elevate their ordinary, landlocked life to do extraordinary things. This is Laird Hamilton in his own words—raw, honest, and unvarnished–on topics he has rarely explored before. Based on extensive interviews and conversations between Laird and his cowriter, Julian Borra, with additional insights from Laird’s wife, pro-volleyball player Gabby Reece, LIFERIDER takes on human resilience, relationships, business, technology, risk-taking, and the importance of respecting the natural world, all through the lens of Laird’s extraordinary life both in and beyond the ocean.

    I was also so chronically unfit that I couldn’t manage more than one flight of stairs without getting seriously out of breath. I was eating my way to a whole host of health problems and my knees were knackered. Now nearly four years on, I am over 80lbs lighter and a whole heck of a lot fitter. I’m now training to be a Personal Trainer so that I can help other people like me. This is why I have written this book. Along the way I learned a lot, and came up with some ideas of my own about how and why people lose weight….or don’t. This is my story.