I have fought the rakam and lived. I have loved a woman and lost her to the waves. I have seen the black kiasheen.Now, I am on a ship I do not recognize with people I do not call friend. They ask me who I am. I tell them little…For I am here for them.I must find their secrets. I must speak to the woman with the blue eyes. When I am finished, perhaps I will tell them who I am, for they have heard my story, and they think they know the end.They are wrong.This is only the start.And tonight, I begin.

    He's an idiot. (At least, according to his Inner Critic.) But, during his anxious bumbling through existence, he has somehow accumulated plenty of knowledge on how to live a rich, meaningful life, how to be happy(ish) even when things don't go your way, and - especially - how to find freedom from unpleasant thoughts, feelings and panic. In this humorous exploration of an anxious life, Neil mixes embarrassing real-life stories with inventive fantasy as he explains how he learned to understand and control his anxiety. Despite the constant interruptions of his Inner Critic, he explores the workings of the brain, love, relationships, purpose, contentment... and even death and the Meaning of Life itself. In between battling aliens in outer space, talking flowers, arguments with himself, and other flights of fancy, he warmly shares practical techniques to live less nervously and more happily. And, somehow, it turns out everything can be explained using custard...

    His mother dies suddenly when he is an infant. Then at age two, he is gone. Vanished, with his father, and abandoned in a far-away place. His future hangs on a Letter from Alabama, a piece of paper that must travel hundreds of miles in an envelope. Then it must land in exactly the right place in a busy office where nobody is under any obligation to read it or pay any attention to it. This is the true story of that letter, and all that will transpire because of it. It’s the story of human failure, and human triumph. Forgiveness and redemption. It is a testament to, and a prayer of thanks for, good and decent people everywhere who stand up for a child when they don’t have to—when they have nothing to gain and perhaps much to lose. It’s a tribute to those who see the potential in a young person and give that person a chance to be the best that he or she can be. They are the heroes for whom this story is now committed to writing.

    Dr. Carl Stanley’s efforts are no exception, his creation, Marie becomes the picture of physical perfection; possessing the ability to heal at a rapid rate. She has been groomed from infancy to apply her gifts in the service of war. However even a woman given all the physical gifts in the world is not immune to pain and suffering. One can only be pushed so far before pushing back. Can they handle what they have created....Can she? Sometimes the cure is far more dangerous than the disease…..

    In his first book, It’s Not Just Who You Know (which rose to #2 on the New York Times bestseller list), world renowned leadership speaker and former CEO of Up with People Tommy Spaulding talked about the power of building genuine and lasting relationships both personally and professionally.  In his new book, The Heart-Led Leader, Spaulding turns his focus to ourselves – to who we are.  Authentic leaders, Spaulding says, live and lead from the heart.  The values and principles that guide our lives and shape our ability to lead others is far more important than our title, or our ability to crunch numbers, or the impressive degrees we display on our walls.   To effect true transformational change, heart-led leaders draw on the qualities of humility, vulnerability, transparency, empathy and love.  Illustrated with stories from his own life, and from some of the exceptional leaders he has met and worked with over the years, Spaulding unpacks what those qualities mean, talks about the 18-inch journey from the head to the heart – from our intellect to our emotions – and shows us how to incorporate them into our careers, into how we manage and lead others, and into how we live our lives.  It is a vision of leadership that has the power to transform everything we do, and the lives of everyone we touch.

    My life went to the dogs...and horses...and llamas... and did I mention happy hour with the goats? My urban world came apart, so I took a leap of faith and crash-landed on a dilapidated would-be horse farm on the flat, windy, treeless prairie of Colorado. It was a place where white horses turn pink at sunrise and I didn't have to worry about locking the back entry to the house, because the door was missing. The biggest social event of any week was greeting the trash man on Tuesday. And what should I do about the deceased llama in the laundry room? Any decent midlife crisis has a quality of time travel, in this case swinging back to my childhood farm and my disconnected, secretive family, then forward to the animals who became my family on the prairie. My dogs and horses were soon joined by some line-dancing llamas and a biker-gang of goat kids, defying gravity and every other rule. I rescued an abused donkey who told me he was Ernest, and Windy, an un-wanted chestnut mare who became our beloved herd matriarch. Even Fred, the duck lived by a code. It's the memoir of my bittersweet transition from a mid-life orphan to a modern pioneer woman, building an entirely different kind of family farm. Stable Relation appeals to all animal lovers, midlife survivors, and anyone whose parents had problems of their own. It's told in a strong, bittersweet voice, sharing life and death on a small farm and the healing power of animals: James Herriot meets Janette Walls.

     After experiencing a rail-based epiphany whilst on jury service, Woodward thinks that it might be possible to get as far as Singapore from his home in Edinburgh by train, setting into motion his next big solo rail journey. A Bridge Even Further connects the many bridges and 18000 kilometers of track across the thirteen countries that separate his home from the furthest point in mainland Asia. Matthew Woodward shares the intricate detail of his journey in a way that that will appeal to both armchair explorers as well as those who are thinking of embarking on their very own rail adventure.

    So is her twin sister. But while Allison spends her summer break hiding in the library behind her Goth makeup, Jade fools around as often as she can. Allison can’t believe Jade would ignore their mother’s fatal example so recklessly, but concealing a cursed bloodline and its dangerous effects is far from Allison’s only problem. Mean girl Julie’s snob mob is determined to ruin her summer, and Aunt Sarah’s Bible thumping is getting louder. Only her new friend, Ren Fisher, offers safe haven from the chaos of her life.When one of Jade’s risky dates leads to humiliation and sudden tragedy, Allison reels, and Ren catches her. But as her feelings for him grow, so does her fear that she’ll hurt him—or worse—in an unguarded moment. The choice is coming—love him or save him—but Allison might not live to make it. One way or another, the curse will have its due.

    James captures the essence of what it means to be African today, facing everything from the Big Five to the vestiges of apartheid to the AIDS epidemic. He provides authoritative information on African wildlife and illustrates hair-raising encounters with lions, buffalo, leopards, elephants, rhinoceros and snakes through exciting and humorous stories. The book follows James’s journey from city boy to conservationist and shows what it takes to become an African game ranger. From his first graphic encounter with the brutality of nature on Table Mountain in South Africa to his disappearance as a boy on safari in Malawi to the rigorous training he underwent to become a game ranger at Phinda Private Game Reserve, this book will delight and educate anyone fascinated with nature, wildlife, travel and adventure. James provides wonderful insights into African conservation and a fascinating glimpse into the importance of cross-cultural relationships in Africa’s wildlife tourism environment. He details his own inner journey overcoming physical challenges and finding the balance between following passions and what’s important in life.

    This was Ireland of the 1970s and 80s before the arrival of the short-lived economic riches of the Celtic Tiger.Dwyer's vivid and colorful prose describes his hard but happy life as part of a isolated but close-knit community:Early school days spent in a building with no running water or electricityAn encounter with a violent sheep that literally turned his world upside downThe days spent cutting the turf and saving the hay by handAn Irish Christmas where nearly everything on the table was sourced from the farmHis exciting family history that brought his relations to the Klondike Gold Rush in CanadaComplemented by a collection of evocative photographs, each story tells of a way of life that has now largely disappeared.Sprinkled with a selection of fitting works by some of Ireland's best-known poets such as Seamus Heaney and Patrick Kavanagh, this gem of a book is a chronicle of the simple but happy life of an Irish farmer boy.

    Four years ago, the GOP dominated politics at every level in Colorado. Republicans held both Senate seats, five of seven congressional seats, the governor’s mansion, the offices of secretary of state and treasurer, and both houses of the state legislature. After the 2008 election, the exact opposite was true: replace the word Republicans with Democrats in the previous sentence, and you have of one the most stunning reversals of political fortune in American history.This is also the story of how it will happen—indeed, is happening—in other states across the country. In Colorado, progressives believe they have found a blueprint for creating permanent Democratic majorities across the nation. With discipline and focus, they have pioneered a legal architecture designed to take advantage of new campaign finance laws and an emerging breed of progressive donors who are willing to commit unprecedented resources to local races. It’s simple, brilliant, and very effective.Rob Witwer is a former member of the Colorado House of Representatives and practices law in Denver.Emmy award–winning journalist Adam Schrager covers politics for KUSA-TV, the NBC affiliate in Denver. Schrager and his family live in the Denver area. He is the author of The Principled Politician: Governor Ralph Carr and the Fight against Japanese Internment

    That is, until she realizes she’ll have to kiss Prince Charming. And not only is Prince Charming—a.k.a James Lowe—the most popular boy in school, but Grace has never, ever been kissed.To help, Grace's two best friends create Operation Pucker Up—a plan for Grace to score a kiss before opening night so she doesn’t make total fool of herself in front of a live audience. If that weren’t enough to think about, Grace's father, who left six months ago, suddenly walks back into her life. Grace, her mom and sister have bonded as the “Terrific Three” – and while two of the “Three” welcome Dad back with open arms, Grace isn’t sure she can forgive and forget. With Operation Pucker Up spinning out of control, and opening night fast approaching, will Grace manage to get her happily ever after—both on-stage and off?

    A fixture behind home plate throughout the Yankees biggest successes, Jorge became the Yankees' star catcher almost immediately upon his arrival, and in the years that followed, his accomplishments, work ethic, and leadership established him as one of the greatest Yankees ever to put on the uniform.Now, in this long-awaited memoir, Jorge Posada details his journey to home plate, sharing a remarkable, generational account of his journey from the ball fields of Puerto Rico to the House that Ruth built. Offering a view from behind the mask unlike any other, Jorge discusses the key moments and plays that shaped teams and forged a legacy that came to define Yankee baseball for a generation. With pitch-by-pitch recall, Jorge looks back across the years, explaining how--as part of the Core Four alongside Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera--he helped to reestablish the Yankees as a dynasty and win five World Series.Going beyond his all-star career, Jorge also shares his life in full for the first time, examining how his remarkable journey to the big leagues began in the most unexpected of ways. Digging into his cultural roots in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba, Jorge illuminates three generations of cherished father-son relationships that have made him the man he is today. At the center is the deep bond he shares with his father and namesake, Jorge Sr, who escaped Cuba and would eventually mold his son to be a ball player, honing his talent and instilling in him the drive necessary to fulfill his childhood dream of playing in the Bronx.Complete with sixteen pages of color photographs, this touching and earnest memoir is a testament to hard work and a celebration of the generational gift of baseball between fathers and sons.

     Two men, known in medical journals as the Berlin Patients, revealed answers to a functional cure for HIV. Their cures came twelve years apart, the first in 1996 and the second in 2008. Each received his own very different treatment in Berlin, Germany, and each result spurred a new field of investigation, fueling innovative lines of research and sparking hope for the thirty-four million people currently infected with HIV. For the first time, Nathalia Holt, who has participated in some of the most fruitful research in the field, tells the story of how we came to arrive at this astounding and controversial turning point. Holt explores the two men’s stories on a personal level, looking at how their experiences have influenced HIV researchers worldwide—including one very special young family doctor who took the time to look closely at his patients—and how they responded to their medications. Based on extensive interviews with the patients and their doctors as well as her own in-depth research, this book is an unprecedented look at how scientists pursue their inquiries, the human impact their research has, and what is and is not working in the relationship between Big Pharma and medical care.

    Speed and control: I was fascinated by both, as well as by the way they were inextricably bound together.” Eventually, when Posey’s son was born, he was convinced that building him a basement layout would be the highest expression of fatherhood. Sixteen years and thousands of hours later, this project, “the outgrowth of chance meetings, unexpected friendships, mistakes, illness, latent ambitions, and sheer luck” was completed. But for Posey, the creation of his HO-scale masterpiece based on the historic Colorado Midland, was just the beginning.In Playing with Trains, Sam Posey ventures well beyond the borders of his layout in northwestern Connecticut, to find out what makes the top modelers tick. He expects to find men “engaged in a genial hobby, happy to spend a few hours a week escaping the pressures of contemporary life.” Instead he uncovers a world of extremes–extreme commitment, extreme passion, and extreme differences of approach. For instance, Malcolm Furlow, holed up on his ranch in the wilderness of New Mexico, insists that model railroading is defined by scenery and artistic self-expression. On the other hand, Tony Koester, a New Jersey modeler, believes his “mission” is to replicate, with fanatical precision and authenticity, the way a real railroad operates. Going to extremes himself, Posey actually “test drives” a real steam engine in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, in an attempt to understand the great machines that inspired the models and connect us to a time when “the railroad was inventing America.” Timeless and original, Playing with Trains reveals a classic, questing American world.From the Hardcover edition.