There was no immediate response on my part, only a deep sense of fear entombed by a completely paralyzed inner spirit. Much to my surprise, he spoke again: "Sir, you've waited too long to get here. You're not going to make it." And he continued: "If you believe in God, this is the time to make peace." In that very moment, I said to myself, "What do you mean, 'If you believe in God?' Of course I believe in God! I'm a man of faith and a Catholic priest!" Fr. John Tourangeau, O. Praem., a Norbertine priest who had an afterlife experience following a major heart attack, emphatically states, "Heaven is for real!" Within this enlightening and hope-filled book, Fr. John weaves a powerful and dynamic tapestry of the Kingdom of God at hand through the exploration of Christian tradition, Sacred Scripture, Catholic teaching, as well as his own lived experiences. "While the fullness of heaven cannot be fully experienced in our life here on earth," Father explains, "we are able to more fully experience God's love for us through our relationships with others. For it is in and through these relationships that we draw closer to Christ and his promise for us."

    A collection of humorous hospital stories and events as witnessed by a frequently incarcerated patient and told from a patient's point of view while secured and gagged in a hospital bed.Stories and tales from a lifetime of hospital admissions, showing that hospital life as a patient is not all doom and gloom.

    From canoe camping next to unnamed lakes, to kayaking in Alaska’s pristine waters, she describes her many encounters with the bears, moose and other animals that make this wilderness their home. With her partner David she helped to build a cabin on a remote piece of property, off the grid and accessible only by boat. Illustrated with the photos she took along the way, her story is sometimes comic, and sometimes tragic, but throughout its pages she speaks with the voice of one who loves nature and the wilderness.

    With honesty and a clear perspective, Diane reveals her daily struggles as she faces the difficult realities of grief. The reader feels her pain and at the same time rejoices in her commitment to tackle the daily challenges of life on her own and succeed. Her heartfelt story inspires hope as readers discover they can build a meaningful life-alone or with someone new-after a devastating loss. This inspirational story vividly portrays the painful depths of grief that many people experience with a loss in their life. Diane's descriptive writing captivates the reader and engages them in the journey through her painful loss. Alone for the first time in her life, she realizes the healing powers passing strangers provide as they float in and out of her life. Along the way, she discovers personal strengths and skills she never knew she possessed. With sparks of humor scattered throughout her story, she provides the readers with a glow in the darkness that inspires them to keep going. Twenty-Eight Snow Angels is a book that will leave the reader thinking, "Someone finally gets it " Even counselors, family members and friends who read this book can gain a deeper understanding of how ravishing grief can be to people who have experienced a traumatic loss in their life. "A keenly observed story of the sudden death of a husband. The reader feels the grief and the hope that follows." %u2013Adair Lara, author of Hold Me Close, Let Me Go "Writer Diane Dettmann's grief makes small events, like the sale of a beloved piano, become as momentous as the sale of a national treasure. In the process, she rediscovers faith, community and love." -Susan Parker, author of Walking in the Deep End "In Twenty-Eight Snow Angels, writer Diane Dettmann gives us a poignant account of a life badly rent and ultimately revitalized in a way we can take to heart." -Peggy Lang, award-winning ghostwriter "The reader is drawn in and captivated by Diane's vivid account of her grief after the death of her loving husband . . . a powerful story of love, grief, hope and faith all can learn from." -Mary Jacks, M.S. Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist "Diane's piano move was one of our most memorable. It really touched us all" -Paula Soukup, Manny's Piano Company, Inc.

    His journey starts in a conventional Army unit where he doesn't feel fulfilled in his duties and obligations. This lack of responsibility drives David to pursue the dream of becoming an MH-47G Chinook helicopter crew chief in the most secretive and elite aviation unit in the world. David is met with constant hurdles and set backs trying to achieve his ultimate goal but he is more determined than ever. After graduating from the units five week selection process he is thrown into school after school and non stop training before being able to step foot on the aircraft he so desperately dreams of crewing on. After almost a year in the Special Operations unit he is trained and ready to deploy with 160th, and it is nothing short of intense. He learns quickly that his new units mission op tempo is exactly what he had hoped. He is eager to prove himself among the ranks and continues to hone his craft over the next four years. After five deployments with the unit as a crew chief he is discharged from the military. After leaving the fast paced world of the SOF community he falls into a deep depression. Alcohol becomes the new most important thing, and he finds himself in a new and reckless battlefield. He never saw this coming.

    His testing of 25 top female pilots for reactions to isolation, centrifuge, and weightlessness proved him right, and 13 exceptional candidates were identified. Despite countless personal and professional sacrifices, these women joined NASA's clandestine new program -- which, after two intensive years, was suddenly, and mysteriously, canceled. Promised the Moon chronicles the dramatic story of the rise and fall of these pioneering female astronauts, patriots betrayed by men like John Glenn, who opposed women astronauts, and by someone from their own ranks. The first writer to track down the surviving Fellow Lady Astronaut Trainees, Stephanie Nolen vividly brings this fascinating and timely tale to life. Historical photographs are included in this riveting account.

    Along the way, she discovers a world of cultural mayhem, radical medical treatment, an unexpected romance, and, most importantly, a piece of her life she never even knew she was missing.When Amy B. Scher was struck with undiagnosed late-stage, chronic Lyme disease, the best physicians in America labeled her condition incurable and potentially terminal. Deteriorating rapidly, she went on a search to save her own life--from the top experts in Los Angeles and the world-renowned Mayo Clinic in Minneapolis to a state-of-the-art hospital in Chicago. After exhausting all of her options in the US, she discovered a possible cure--but it was highly experimental, only available in India, and had as much of a probability of killing her as it did of curing her. Knowing the risks, Amy packed her bags anyway and flew across the world hoping to find the ultimate cure.This Is How I Save My Life is a powerful and uplifting story of sheer determination for anyone who believes in--or doubts--the existence of miracles when it seems like all hope is lost.

    Nicholas became Tsar at the age of 26. Though a conscientious man who was passionate in his devotion to his country, he was weak, sentimental, dogmatic and indecisive. Ironically he could have made an effective constitutional monarch, but these flaws rendered him fatally unsuited to be the sole ruler of a nation that was in the throes of painful modernisation. That he failed is not surprising, for many abler monarchs could not have succeeded. Rather to be wondered at is that he managed, for 23 years, to hold on to power despite the overwhelming force of circumstances. Though Nicholas was exasperating, he had many endearing qualities. A modern audience, aware - as contemporaries were not - of the private pressures under which he lived, can empathise with him and forgive some of his errors of judgement. To some readers he seems a fool, to others a monster, but many are touched by the story of a well-meaning man doing his best under impossible conditions. He is, in other words, a biographical subject that engages readers whatever their viewpoint. His family was of great importance to Nicholas. He and his wife, Alexandra, married for love and retained this affection to the end of their lives. His four daughters, all different and intriguing personalities, were beautiful and charming. His son, the family's - and the nation's - hope for the future, was disabled by an illness that had to be concealed from Russia and from the world. It was this circumstance that made possible the nefarious influence of Rasputin, which in turn hastened the end of the dynasty.This story has everything: romance and tragedy, grandeur and misery, human frailty and an international catastrophe that would not only bring down the Tsar but put an end to the glittering era of European monarchies.

    In her revealing family memoir, DeSalvo sifts through painful memories to give voice to all that remained unspoken and unresolved in her life: a mother's psychotic depression, a father's rage and violent rigidity, a sister's early depression and eventual suicide, and emerging memories of childhood incest. At times humorous and often brutally candid, DeSalvo also delves through the more recent conflicts posed by marriage, motherhood, and the crisis that started her on the path of her life's work: becoming a writer in order to excavate the meaning of her life and community.In Vertigo, Louise DeSalvo paints a striking picture of the easy freedom of the husband and fatherless world of working-class Hoboken, New Jersey, the neighborhood of her early childhood, where mothers and children had an unaccustomed say in the running of their lives while men were off defending their country, but were jolted back into submission when World War II ended. Hoboken was not a place where girls were encouraged to develop their minds, or their independent spirits, yet it is that tenement-dotted city with its pulse and energy, wonderful Italian pastry, and sidewalk roller-skating contests, and not suburban Ridgefield, where the family moves when Louise is seven, that claims Louise’s heart.Written with an honesty that is as rare as it is unsettling, Vertigo also speaks to broader truths about the impact of ethnicity, class, and gender in American life. Offering inspiration and a healthy dose of subversion, this personal story of a writer’s life is also a study of the alchemy between lived experience and creativity, and the life-transforming possibilities of this process.

    

    town, an adolescent girl is unwittingly handed a one-way ticket by her mother to allegedly "visit" her estranged father in Florida. Young and vulnerable, Lockey Maisonnueve has no idea she is being abandoned and sent to live with a vile and dangerous pedophile who would spend the next several years violently raping, abusing and mercilessly selling his daughter's body into childhood prostitution to other adult men. After being rescued by her naive, but well-intentioned, grandparents, her troubled life is further devastated by cancer and ravaged by the subsequent brutal murder of her mother, in which Lockey is briefly considered a suspect. "A Girl Raised by Wolves' is the inspirational memoir of a survivor of the darkest circumstances one can endure in a single lifetime and still emerge with a sense of humor and to defiantly proclaim "they didn't break me!"

    suburb. Instead, he humorously falls from one country to the next, striking out repeatedly with the local women, getting robbed, having dreams that became reality, self-diagnosing himself with a host of diseases, and suffering repeated bouts of stomach illness that made marathon bus rides superhuman feats of bodily strength. Along the journey he chronicles the friendships, the women, and the struggles, including one fateful night in Paraguay that he thought would lead to his end.(This book is intended for men, and will be almost universally disliked by women because of its sexist themes and occasional toilet humor.)

    They offered her a million dollars. She told them to take a hike.Everyone knew that Barry Martin, head of the construction project, was involved in the push to get her out of the house so that the project could proceed without further delay.Everyone was wrong.When Barry took the job as construction supervisor for the shopping mall that was being erected around Edith's little house, he determined to make things as easy for her as he could. He didn't expect that she'd ask him to drive her to a hair appointment—but he did offer to help, after all. And it was in that one small gesture that an unlikely friendship was sparked, one that changed them both forever.The story of Barry Martin and Edith Macefield is a tale of balance and compassion, of giving enough without giving too much, of helping our elderly loved ones through the tough times without taking away their dignity. In the end, Under One Roof is a tale of grace, and one from which all of us can take solace and strength. From Barry and Edith we have much to learn about love and letting go and, just possibly, about seeing through fading light to find great joy.

    No matter where nature has placed him--the club rooms of Brooklyn, the Mafia dives of New York's Lower East Side, the wilds of Alaska, or the hills of Hollywood--he has found a way to put on a show and sell tickets at the door. "All life was a theater and I wanted to put it up on a stage," he writes. "I wanted to set the world under a marquee that read: 'Jerry Weintraub Presents.'"In WHEN I STOP TALKING, YOU'LL KNOW I'M DEAD, we follow Weintraub from his first great success at age twenty-six with Elvis Presley, whom he took on the road with the help of Colonel Tom Parker; to the immortal days with Sinatra and Rat Pack glory; to his crowning hits as a movie producer, starting with Robert Altman and Nashville, continuing with Oh, God!, The Karate Kid movies, and Diner, among others, and summiting with Steven Soderbergh and Ocean's Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen.Along the way, we'll watch as Jerry moves from the poker tables of Palm Springs (the games went on for days), to the power rooms of Hollywood, to the halls of the White House, to Red Square in Moscow and the Great Palace in Beijing-all the while counseling potentates, poets, and kings, with clients and confidants like George Clooney, Bruce Willis, George H. W. Bush, Armand Hammer, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, John Denver, Bobby Fischer . . .well, the list goes on forever.And of course, the story is not yet over . . .as the old-timers say, "The best is yet to come."As Weintraub says, "When I stop talking, you'll know I'm dead."With wit, wisdom, and the cool confidence that has colored his remarkable career, Jerry chronicles a quintessentially American journey, one marked by luck, love, and improvisation. The stories he tells and the lessons we learn are essential, not just for those who love movies and music, but for businessmen, entrepreneurs, artists . . . everyone.

    It features her amazing encounters with both good and evil forces and reveals profoundly important messages for all humanity, largely hidden until now. Sometimes harrowing, but filled with hope, it answers many of the questions that people have been asking for thousands of years and at the same time offers a glimpse into God's love and justice, and of what is soon to come. Ryden, who is based in Greece, has spoken in 79 countries to millions of people. Heaven is Real But So is Hell is her first book release in America.