Secret Slave: Kidnapped and abused for 13 years. This is my story of survival


Anna Ruston - 2016
    You're not going anywhere. You're mine now.'Growing up in a deeply troubled family, 15-year-old Anna felt lost and alone in the world. So when a friendly taxi driver befriended her, Anna welcomed the attention. She agreed to go home with him to meet his family. She wouldn't escape for over a decade.Held captive by a sadistic paedophile, with the full acceptance of his family, Anna was subjected to despicable levels of sexual abuse and torture. The unrelenting violence and degradation resulted in numerous miscarriages, and the birth of four babies... each one stolen away from Anna at birth.Her salvation arrived thirteen years too late, but despite her shattered mind and body, Anna finally managed to flee. This is her harrowing, yet uplifting story, of survival.

My Last Rock Bottom


Sara Berelsman - 2013
    Sara was a writer, and drinking seemed to be an element of the identity. As a writer, she searched for the story that would define who she was, and her drinking was a part of her. She drank socially at first, with friends or family, at parties, or festivals. She drank at home sometimes, a glass of wine or two. It was when the two glasses of wine turned into two bottles of wine, when her blacked-out drunken behavior began destroying her marriage, when she began combining her drinking with pills - prescribed or otherwise - this is when Sara began to realize she had a problem. It wasn't until she hit her last rock bottom that she understood her story. If she were to continue drinking, her marriage would be over. She knew she had to quit. So she did. Sara quickly learned that sobriety wasn't easy. She had never realized before what a focal point alcohol had been in her life. This new world she was in felt strange and unnatural. Sometimes the daily battle felt impossible. But inside the struggle she found words. One day, she threw on her husband's oversized Nike sweatshirt, drove her daughter to school, and came home to write. The words just poured out of her. Now she had a story. Despite the struggles she faced and still faces, Sara has remained sober. This is her story.

Every Moment of a Fall: A Memoir of Recovery Through EMDR Therapy


Carol E. Miller - 2016
    Miller was sixteen when the private plane piloted by her father crashed, pinning her in the wreckage, critically injuring her parents and killing her twelve-year-old sister. Compounding this traumatic event, her father told her he wished she had died instead of her sister. For the next twenty years, she labored under feelings of guilt and lack of self-worth. When another in a long line of personal crises landed her in therapy with an EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) practitioner, she began at last to investigate the crippling effects of the plane crash. Using bi-lateral stimulation to access her fiercely guarded memories, she learned to challenge the belief that the crash was all her fault, and that she didn't deserve to be alive.  This is a brave and revealing memoir of recovery from tragedy, and a fascinating, vividly narrated exploration of the increasingly popular eye-movement therapy developed to heal the wounds trauma leaves in its wake.

EverRealm


Jake Bible - 2017
    They have created the Domains and there they plan to reside forever. Except, the nightmares of reality have followed them into their new quantum dimension and those nightmares threaten to destroy it all! Now it is up to one of them to help navigate the quantum platform known as EverRealm, a fantasy MMORPG of epic proportions, in order to complete a quest he neither wants to complete nor knows how. With the help of his friends, and a lot of luck, he will have to face trials and tribulations like he's never faced as a player! Because now it is no longer a matter of Game Over, but of life or death! Can he survive it all and come out a winner? The only way he'll know is if he plays the game to the bitter end!

Close to the Bone


Lisa Ray - 2014
    Actor. Cancer survivor. Mother of twins through surrogacy. Woman of no fixed address. This is the story of Lisa Ray. An unflinching, deeply moving account of her nomadic existence: her entry into the Indian entertainment industry at sixteen; her relationship with her Bengali father and Polish mother; life on the movie sets and her brush with the Oscars; her battle with eating disorders; being diagnosed with multiple myeloma at thirty-seven; her spiritual quest; lovers and traitors, mentors and dream-makers; and the heartaches and triumphs along the way. It is also about Lisa's quest for love. Funny, charming, and gut-wrenchingly honest all at once, Close to the Bone is Lisa Ray's brave and inspiring story of a life lived on her terms.

Sins of the Family


Felicity Davis - 2016
    I felt hollow and incomplete. To be totally free, I needed to understand why she behaved the way she did."Felicity grew up with her single mum and grandparents in a tiny house in Scarborough. Her dad lived nearby but she was never allowed to meet his family. It was the first secret of many. Another was her Gran's violence towards her, and the psychological abuse that blighted her childhood. All Felicity knew was that Gran's mother had gone to prison, and that her grandmother's suffering somehow excused everything. When Felicity researched her family history, she was led back to the shocking truth about her great-grandmother Emily Swann, a brutalised wife hung for murdering her husband. Emily's children were shamed, the family broken apart, the tragedy impacting on generations to come. Could Felicity finally break free of the damaging cycle, and lay the past to rest?

Rolling Pennies in the Dark: A Memoir with a Message


Douglas MacKinnon - 2012
    He shares poignant stories of his childhood, including one about rolling pennies by candlelight because the electricity had once again been cut off, and his little sister needed medication. At one point, his alcoholic parents abandoned him and his two siblings for five days, with no food, heat, or electricity in the middle of winter.But as Doug grew, his determination to survive grew with him. Despite being accepted to the Air Force Academy directly after high school, he stayed closer to home so he could look after his younger sister. And as various opportunities opened up to him, he discovered that his heart belonged in the political arena; for it was there, he believed, that he could work for real change and bring help to those who suffered as he did as a child.Rolling Pennies in the Dark reminds readers that it is possible to grow up in the most deplorable of conditions and still find success. More significantly, MacKinnon offers real solutions to our nation’s growing poverty problem. This is an important, essential book.

3D Coach: Capturing the Heart Behind the Jersey


Jeff Duke - 2014
    Today's coach could be one of the greatest greatest authoritative figures in the life of today's adolescent. So the question isn't whether coaches leave a legacy, but rather, "What will that legacy be?" Current trending research shows that only 15% of coaches are intentional about coaching beyond the skills and strategies of the game (1st Dimension). A 3-Dimensional Coach understands and harnesses the power of the coaching platform to coach the mind (2nd Dimension) and transform the heart (3rd Dimension), tand they can be the catalysts for internal transformation that guides both the coach and the athlete on a spiritual journey to finding purpose in this performance-based culture of sport. "Now that's a legacy!" In "3D Coach," you will learn from National Coaches Training Director Jeff Duke about his own journey through the three dimensions of coaching and how it has impacted his life and those around him. You will also read the personal stories of coaches from all levels who have implemented the 3D concept into their own programs and who have pointed to Jesus Christ, the Master Coach, as the ultimate example of how to lead athletes to true significance.

Why Them?


Sarah Burleton - 2013
    

Nobody’s Son: All Alex ever wanted was a family of his own


Cathy Glass - 2017
    

Smoking Cigarettes, Eating Glass: A Psychologist’s Memoir


Annita Perez Sawyer - 2015
    Discharged in 1966, after finally receiving proper psychiatric care, Sawyer kept her past secret and moved on to graduate from Yale University, raise two children, and become a respected psychotherapist. That is, until 2001, when she reviewed her hospital records and began to remember a broken childhood and the even more broken mental health system of the 1950s and 1960s.

Desert Sniper: How One Ordinary Brit Went to War Against ISIS


Ed Nash - 2019
    Ed Nash has travelled across the globe, and is working with refugees in Burma, when he first becomes aware of the terrible atrocities being committed under ISIS's newly established 'Caliphate', covering vast tracts of Iraq and Syria. In June 2015, he chooses to undertake the hazardous journey, via Northern Iraq, to Syria, to join ill-equipped and poorly trained but battle-hardened Kurdish forces as they attempt to halt Daesh's relentless advance. Nash is an articulate, insightful and refreshingly honest companion as he unpacks the shifting complexities of the political and military situation in which he finds himself. As one of a motley band of foreign volunteer fighters - veterans of other conflicts, adventurers and misfits, from many different countries - we follow him through his rudimentary training and early combat operations as he and his companions slowly gain the trust and respect of their Kurdish colleagues. Nash shows us the realities of the war on the ground in Syria in fascinating detail; the privations of the ordinary Kurdish soldiers, the terrible price paid by civilians caught in the cross-fire, the ever-present danger of lethal suicide bombers and occasional moments of striking beauty in amongst the carnage. A modern classic in the making, Desert Sniper will prove to be one of the most unforgettable accounts to emerge from the war against ISIS.

Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience with Hillary, Bill, and How They Operate


Gary J. Byrne - 2016
    Now that a second Clinton administration threatens -- their scheme from the very beginning -- Byrne exposes what he saw of the real Hillary Clinton.While serving as a Secret Service Officer, Gary Byrne protected President Bill Clinton and the First Family in the White House and outside the Oval Office. There, he saw the political and personal machinations of Bill and Hillary Clinton and those who were fiercely loyal to them. In CRISIS OF CHARACTER Byrne provides a firsthand account of the scandals--known and unknown--and daily trials ranging from the minor to national in scale.Having witnessed the personal and political dysfunction of the Clinton White House--so consumed by scandal and destroying their enemies, real and imagined--Byrne came to understand that, to the Clintons, governing was an afterthought. He now tells this story--before voters go to the polls--in the hopes that Clinton supporters will understand the real Hillary Clinton.

Relentless Forward Progress: A Guide to Running Ultramarathons


Bryon Powell - 2011
    What was once the pinnacle of achievement in a runner’s life is now a stepping stone for extraordinary adventure in ultramarathoning. The number of ultrarunners—those running distances of 50k (31miles), 50 miles, 100k (62 miles), or 100 miles—is growing astronomically each year.Dean Karnazes’ Ultramarathon Man and Chris McDougall’s Born to Run have inspired tens of thousands to try these seemingly superhuman distances. But to date, there has been no practical guide to ultramarathoning. Now, Bryon Powell has written Relentless Forward Progress, the first how-to manual for aspiring ultrarunners. Powell covers every aspect of training for and racing ultra distances. This encyclopedic volume prepares runners for going farther than they have ever gone before and, in the process, shows them that they are capable of the “impossible.”

Faith: Behind The Fences: A True Story Of Survival In A Japanese Prison Camp


Kelly Dispirito Taylor - 2011
    But through the recognition of small miracles, the members of the Londt-Shultz family, though damaged, endure, and in spite of life-threatening challenges become saviors among their peers and courageous examples to their captors.