The Mindset


Ace Bowers - 2019
    He was forced to choose which path he was going to take: continue the cycle of family poverty or break it. The Mindset is an inspirational memoir of Ace Bowers’ personal transformation from janitor to millionaire. Bowers began his journey uneducated, overweight, addicted to cigarettes, in debt, and depressed. Revealing the skeletons in his closet for the first time set the scene for how he got to the point of cleaning a motel for $6 an hour. Bowers’ detailed accounts of his turbulent and traumatizing childhood illustrated what it is like growing up in a poor, alcoholic, and abusive family. The metamorphosis began as soon as he changed his mindset. Within five years, Bowers was able to completely turn his life around, going from trash to technology. This memoir illuminates step by step his unconventional path to wealth, health, and happiness.

Confessions of a Childfree Woman: A Life Spent Swimming Against the Mainstream


Marcia Drut-Davis - 2013
    Now, in her stirring new memoir Confessions of a Childfree Woman, Drut-Davis tells the story behind that national TV appearance and recounts the painful aftermath.Along the way, Drut-Davis exposes and explores our culture’s rampant pronatalism and the stigma we continue to attach to childless women. By taking us deep into her own life and the emotions—positive and negative—surrounding her bold choice, Drut-Davis lays bare our society’s myth that true fulfillment and happiness can come only through procreation.Reflecting on her 70 years, Drut-Davis takes a fair look at what she’s lost by not having children, but her focus always returns to all she has gained: a life lived with no regrets.

So Close: Infertile and Addicted to Hope


Tertia Loebenberg Albertyn - 2009
    and trying, and trying some more? How far do you go to achieve your dream of having children?So Close is the heart wrenching, exhilarating, devastatingly funny story of Tertia Albertyn's battle with infertility. Tertia wanted a baby so badly she went through nine IVFs. Most people give up after the third.I don't think I am being brave at all. I am just too terrified NOT to try again.In her worst nightmare she could never have imagined that making a baby would take her four years, each treatment bringing her and her husband Marko closer and closer to creating their family.During Tertia's journey everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Until, finally, everything goes just right.Tertia is as hilarious as she is irrepressible, as approachable as she is knowledgeable. If you are struggling with infertility, have triumphed over infertility or have felt empathy with someone who is going through this experience, you will find a friend in Tertia.

J K Rowling and the Hary Potter Phenomenon


Lindsey Fraser - 2011
    

Fragile: Beauty in Chaos, Grace in Tragedy, and Hope that Lives In Between


Shannon Sovndal - 2020
    He thought he was going in with his eyes wide open. Really, he had no clue. Nothing could prepare him for the harsh reality of being a compassionate human and working as an ER doctor. In his emotionally charged memoir, Sovndal examines the tenuous balance between trying to compartmentalize the trauma of tragedy while also preserving his own humanity. With candor and humility, Fragile pulls back the curtain on the ER, a place where Sovndal has learned that universal truths about the human condition can be discovered—if you pause long enough to take a breath. At turns heartbreaking and heartwarming, serious and funny, Sovndal’s memoir is about trying to reconcile the beautiful and horrific tension that makes life so fragile, and how accepting that hard truth opens us up to appreciate life’s most precious moments—which are often the ones most filled with connection, hope, and love.ABOUT THE AUTHOR:SHANNON SOVNDAL, MD, a board-certified doctor in both emergency medicine and emergency medical services (EMS), serves as a physician and medical director for multiple EMS agencies and fire departments. Dr. Sovndal has a wide range of career experience, working in tactical medicine (TEMS) with the FBI, as a team doctor for the Garmin Professional Cycling team, and as a flight physician. As the producer of the podcast Match on a Fire: Medicine and More, he is the founder of 3Hundred Training Group, which focuses on educating and training pre-hospital providers.Dr. Sovndal attended medical school at Columbia University, where he earned the prestigious Arnold P. Gold Foundation Humanism in Medicine Award, and completed his residency in Emergency Medicine at Stanford University. He is also the author of Cycling Anatomy and Fitness Cycling and lives in Boulder, Colorado, with his family.

Into The Rip


Damien Cave - 2021
    Having covered the war in Iraq and moved to Mexico City with two babies in nappies, he and his wife Diana thought they understood something about the subject.But when they arrived in Sydney so that Cave could establish The New York Times's Australia Bureau, life near the ocean confronted them with new ideas and questions, at odds with their American mindset that risk was a matter of individual choices. Surf-lifesaving and Nippers showed that perhaps it could be managed together, by communities. And instead of being either eliminated or romanticised, it might instead be respected and even embraced.And so Cave set out to understand how our current attitude to risk developed - and why it's not necessarily good for us.Into the Rip is partly the story of this New York family learning to live better by living with the sea and it is partly the story of how humans manage the idea of risk. Interviewing experts and everyday heroes, Cave asks critical questions like: Is safety overrated? Why do we miscalculate risk so often and how can we improve? Is it selfish to take risks or can more exposure make for stronger families, citizens and nations? And how do we factor in legitimate fears and major disasters like Cave has covered in his time here: the Black Summer fires; the Christchurch massacre; and, of course, Covid?The result is Grit meets Phosphorescence and Any Ordinary Day - a book that will change the way you and your family think about facing the world's hazards.

And Then I Cried: Stories of a Mortuary NCO


Justin Jordan - 2012
    Jordan details life as an Air Force Mortuary Non Commissioned Officer. In his stunning debut Jordan forces the reader to walk beside him on his journey in this gruesome world. Jordan holds nothing back, and shares in graphic detail how he honored Americas heroes, both at deployed locations and stateside. This book will pry your eyes wide open as you gasp from the sheer horror he faced daily, from dealing with the families of the fallen, to witnessing the embalming and preparations of the deceased. Jordan also shares how this job taxed his mental well being, as he suffered in silence, longing not to care. Jordan is still serving on Active Duty and suffers from the crippling effects of PTSD, his story will enlighten you, it will touch you, and yes, you will cry.

Get A Life: His & Hers Survival Guide to IVF


Rosie Bray - 2015
    So began their adventure into IVF, via blood tests, sperm tests, injections and probes, becoming involuntary experts on embryology through failure, despair, persistence and success.After 4 years, 3 different clinics, 2 positive pregnancy tests and 1 miscarriage, they finally had a successful pregnancy.GET A LIFE is the perfect down-to-earth guide for anyone thinking of embarking on fertility treatment. It's two books in one, a book of advice for women and a survival guide for men, each chapter mirrored but with very different experience and advice. IVF is terrifying, awful and extraordinary in equal measures for both partners. GET A LIFE shares Richard and Rosie's ride on the fertility roller coaster, bringing you the funny, emotional and physical sides of IVF. It is an invaluable guide from both perspectives on how to get through the process in one piece.

The Sum of My Parts


James Sanford - 2011
    At first I tried to deny my condition (trying to treat a tumor with hot baths and ice packs). Eventually, I decided I would learn as much about my illness as possible while trying to keep my emotions on hold.What followed was an experience that finally forced me to deal with issues about my body that I had tried to ignore for decades. Along the way I dealt with a physician who gave me ridiculous advice and acquaintances who asked unbelievable questions. But I was also fortunate to be surrounded by people who supported me and doctors who helped me through the process.

Some Kind of Crazy: An Unforgettable Story of Profound Brokenness and Breathtaking Grace


Terry Wardle - 2019
     Terry Wardle grew up in the Appalachian coalfields of southwestern Pennsylvania, part of a hardscrabble family of coal miners whose cast of characters included a hot-tempered grandfather with a predilection for blowing up houses, a distant and disapproving father, and a mother who disciplined him with harsh words and threats of hellfire.After enduring a crazy childhood, Terry graduated to a troubled adolescence, and then on to what seemed like a successful transition into adulthood, earning multiple degrees and founding one of the country's fastest growing churches. But all was not well.All his life, he felt he was never enough. Plagued by a truckload of fear no matter what he accomplished, he fell down the ladder of success into the deepest ditch of his life--ending up in a psychiatric hospital. Fortunately, that's when he discovered that Jesus has no fear of ditches.In fact, Jesus does some of his best work with people who find themselves there. In sharing his remarkable journey, Terry offers hope that healing and wholeness are possible no matter how broken a life may be. His larger-than-life story will help you move forward along your own healing path.

Notorious C.O.P.: The Inside Story of the Tupac, Biggie, and Jam Master Jay Investigations from NYPD's First "Hip-Hop Cop"


Derrick Parker - 2000
     Always straddling the fence between "po-po" and NYPD outsider, Derrick threatened police tradition to try to get the cases solved. He was the first detective to interview an informant offering a detailed account of Biggie Smalls's murder. He protected one of the only surviving eyewitnesses to the Jam Master Jay murder and knows the identity of the killers as well as the motivation behind the shooting. "Notorious C.O.P. "reveals hip-hop crimes that never made the paper--like the robbing of Foxy Brown and the first Hot 97 shooting--and answers some lingering questions about murders that have remained unsolved. The book that both the NYPD and the hip-hop community don't want you to read, "Notorious C.O.P. "is the first insider look at the real links between crime and hip-hop and the inefficiencies that have left some of the most widely publicized murders in entertainment history unsolved.

Crazy Stupid Money (Kindle Single)


Rachel Shukert - 2015
    On social media and beyond, we dish on all aspects of our personal lives: our relationships, our children, our sex lives, our health. But there's one thing that no one ever mentions-- our money. How much do we actually have? Who makes it? And how does that make us feel about ourselves? These are the uncomfortable questions that Rachel Shukert managed to avoid for years, buffered from the gnawing anxiety of her patched-together freelance living by the comfortable salary of her loving and successful husband. But when a sudden change in circumstances forced her to step up and start supporting her family for the first time, she had to face the depth of her phobias about money for the first time, and truth about the damage they had caused to her relationship. It wasn't pretty. Plates were thrown. Police were called. Accountants were vomited on -- or at least, near. And a marriage was pushed to the breaking point by the curious power that money -- or the lack of it -- has in our lives. Hilarious, painful, and searingly honest, CRAZY STUPID MONEY tells the hard truth about all the things that married people (not to mention not-quite-successful creative freelancers) never talk about but desperately wish someone would. The story of how one couple broke themselves down and struggled to come back together again, it's an unflinching look at what we talk about when we DON'T talk about money -- and how alone it makes us feel.RACHEL SHUKERT is a television writer living in Los Angeles. She is the author of five books, including the memoir EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE GREAT and the Kindle Single LET ME BE YOUR STAR. You can follow her on Twitter At @RachelShukertCover Design by Adil Dara

Breaking Out Of A Broken System


Seth Bolt - 2014
    Find out below how all profits from every purchase of this book saves another person's life.Has your life turned out exactly as planned?When you were younger did you have dreams of being a rockstar?...a fireman?...a doctor?Who did you want to be before the world told you who you should be?When we're born, we enter a world full of systems, most of which are out of our control. There are tons of unwritten rules and social pressures we feel forced to follow. We're pressured to:- study hard and get good grades- get accepted and attend college- graduate and find a secure job- get married and start a familyWe're trained not to stray too far from the path.If we follow this recommended path, why do we still feel that we're missing something? In Breaking Out of a Broken System, Seth & Chandler Bolt give you the tools to re-draw the lines, chart new roads, and expand the borders around your life. Each of the brothers writes a totally different perspective on the 15 most important life lessons taught by their parents. These are things they thought everyone learned growing up, but they realized otherwise after going out into the "real world".As you read, you'll have the option to read two completely different perspectives on each life lesson.You can start with the artistic account written by Seth, bass player for the southern rock band NEEDTOBREATHE.Or...Dive into Chandler's entrepreneurial story told from the perspective of the younger brother.There are two major benefits that will manifest from reading these intriguing tales. First, your life will gain a fresh new outlook on how blazing new trails can be the perfect addition to your own path.And secondly, you'll be saving someone else's life.Each book sold saves a life by providing a life-saving malaria pill (#1book1life). Each year, 1.2 million people die from malaria. This is solely because many villages only receive 3-4 months worth of pills per year to cure the disease.Our mission with the "Breaking Out of a Broken System" book launch is to buy 10,000 life-saving malaria pills by selling 10,000 copies of this book.Buy this book, change your life. Buy this book, save another.Buy the book during launch week to get tons of free stuff & a chance to win the trip of lifetime to Uganda!

Blowing My Way to the Top: How to Break the Rules, Find Your Purpose, and Create the Life and Career You Deserve


Jen Atkin - 2020
    But Jen’s success didn’t arrive overnight. Her glamorous, jet-setting lifestyle came from years of hard work, humility, and hustle. In Blowing My Way to the Top, Jen shatters the illusion of effortless, instant success that permeates social media to reveal the sweat, dedication, and drive it really takes to make it.In this inspiring, insightful, and laugh-out-loud funny book, Jen chronicles her remarkable journey and shares what she’s learned along the way. From growing up in a conservative Mormon community where girls were discouraged from pursuing their ambitions, to striking out on her own and finding success on the celebrity style circuit, to building the cult-status brand OUAI—Jen reveals with refreshing candour the lessons, mistakes, and memorable moments that have paved her road to success.Jen also offers insight into the values that have allowed her to thrive in the modern, digital landscape, including the importance of creating authentic content, investing in the community, and building social consciousness into the ethos of a business. And as a trailblazer in a male-dominated industry, Jen speaks frankly about the challenges she’s faced and provides crucial advice for other women, from the importance of running your business like a feminist to building camaraderie amid the competition to learning to navigate the work and life issues that impact women most.At the end of the day, Jen has one simple message: If I can do it, you can too. Blowing My Way to the Top is destined to become the must-read career guide for a new generation, empowering readers everywhere with the permission to dream big—and the tools to make those dreams a reality.

Fighting Infertility: Finding My Inner Warrior Through Trying to Conceive, IVF, and Miscarriage


Samantha Busch - 2021
    She shares both in this honest and relatable account where faith, family, love, and loss intersect. As Samantha’s and Kyle’s public lives grew more pronounced, their private life was being torn apart. The frustrations and uncertainty of their fertility problems took a toll on them as individuals and as a couple, creating a cyclone of emotions that threatened everything they had worked so hard for. Through these trials, they learned how to build a stronger relationship, foster a deeper faith, and find humor through the tears. They also discovered a passion for helping other couples gain access to fertility treatments. In this memoir, Samantha uses her voice to break the silence and stigma that surround the infertility community. She details her battle with infertility, including her IVF experience, her miscarriage, a failed cycle, and the overwhelming grief and depression that surrounded these obstacles.  By sharing practical advice as well as candid and inspiring stories of her journey, she provides support, validation, community, and education for others experiencing similar tribulations.  Fighting Infertility is an opportunity to feel understood, to gain strength through the struggle, and to ignite your inner warrior.