The Rosary: The Prayer That Saved My Life


Immaculée Ilibagiza - 2012
    Nearly two decades later, Immaculée continues to pray the rosary every day and marvels at how she is constantly renewed and richly rewarded by rejoicing in this glorious prayer. It has helped her in every aspect of her life, from literally saving her life to strengthening her faith, easing sorrows, changing heartache into happiness, healing illnesses in herself and others, solving family problems, landing a dream job, finding long-lost friends, and even locating lost keys! She received so many blessings from the rosary, in fact, that she decided to study its history and origins. She soon discovered that it was not just meant for Catholics, but that the Virgin Mary promised a life filled with blessings to everyone from any religion who faithfully recited the rosary daily . . . and this was such wonderful news that she vowed to share it with as many people as she could. In The Rosary: The Prayer That Saved My Life, Immaculée reveals how the rosary’s many blessings can be reaped by each and every one of us. In this moving and uplifting book, the New York Times bestselling author recounts her personal experience of discovering the power and the beauty of the ancient beads—and shows all of us how to enrich our own lives by exploring and embracing the mysteries, secrets, and promises of the prayer that became her “lifeline to heaven.”

All At Sea: One man. One bathtub. One very bad idea.


Tim FitzHigham - 2009
    The book follows the author's death-defying 200-mile journey in his antique Thomas Crapper bath - not just across the Channel, but around Kent - right up to the tremendous reception and huge media attention which awaited him under Tower Bridge. Tim met the Queen, and his bath now resides in the National Maritime Museum of Great Britain.

Ready or Not, Here We Come!: The Real Experts' Guide to the First Year with Twins


Elizabeth Lyons - 2003
    And the adventure has only begun! In her first humor-packed guide to raising twins, Elizabeth Lyons and her "multiples" sorority offer the wisdom of their combined experience in the form of practical shortcuts, real-world strategies, and sage advice. Topics include: - Preparing the Lair: Mandatory Gear for Babies AND Mom - Twinproofing Your Marriage - Breastfeeding Strategies (and Why It's Okay if You Don't) - Unsolicited Advice: Stories from the Trenches - Getting Twins on a Schedule--Preferably the Same One Lyons balances the day-to-day challenges of raising twins--from double feedings to sleep deprivation to getting out while pretending everything's under control--with a sanity-saving dose of camaraderie. By the end, you'll be smiling and shouting, "Thank heaven, I'm not alone!"

Anything But a Wasted Life


Sita Kaylin - 2018
    You're often treated like a living blow-up doll and a therapist simultaneously. It's a life that many judge easily ... until you know more. Sita Kaylin, a California-based veteran in the sex industry, has lived the pitfalls of being naked in front of strangers and the absurdities that arise when you fake intimacy for a living. She left home when she was sixteen, worked hard at several jobs and eventually started college after dropping out of high school. There, a roommate turned her on to stripping, revealing a way out of the crushing financial pressures she felt and her struggles as a pre-law student with very little time or energy to study. She had no idea how wild her journey would become and what a large part of her life it would be. Sita's stories take shape through an often altered, occasionally sarcastic, sometimes illegal and frequently funny magnifying glass she holds up to not just the sex industry, but also to human needs and desires, modern relationships, mental health, personal independence. Anything But a Wasted Life is the memoir of an unorthodox life about a woman who has rarely said 'no' to life.

Siege


Deborah Snow - 2018
    A terrorist attack on Australian soil. For seventeen hours Islamic State-inspired gunman Man Haron Monis held his captives in a terrifying drama that paralysed Sydney and kept a nation glued to its television screens. Two hostages were killed and three seriously wounded. The others would have their lives changed for ever.Despite the police leadership declaring it was well prepared for a terrorist attack, many shortcomings on the night revealed a response that fell seriously short of that promise. Deborah Snow lays bare what happened behind the scenes in the cafe as the hostages tried to keep themselves alive while waiting for a police response that didn't come. She also takes us into the police command posts as communications, equipment and decision-making structures broke down. Hurtling towards its inevitable and tragic conclusion, Siege draws us into a vortex of police missteps, extraordinary bravery and profound grief to reveal what happened during that awful day. Shocking, compelling and revealing Siege will take its place as the classic account of these events.

No Time on My Hands


Grace Snyder - 1963
    She recalls her childhood in a sod house on a frontier that required everyone to pull together in the face of hostile weather, serious illness, and economic depression but that also held its full share of good times. "As a child of seven and up," writes Grace Snyder, ". . . I wished that I might grow up to make the most beautiful quilts in the world, to marry a cowboy, and to look down on the top of a cloud. At the time I dreamed those dreams and wished those wishes, it seemed impossible that any of them could every come true." But she saw all of them realized.No Time on My Hands is a remarkable chronicle of the sod house era and of Grace Snyder’s married life on a ranch in Nebraska’s sandhills. From there she finally flies above the clouds to exhibits where her quilts contribute to a worldwide revival of quiltmaking. Mrs. Snyder lived twenty years after the publication of these memoirs in 1963, to the age of one hundred. Her daughter, Nellie Snyder Yost, who helped to write No Time on My Hands, has added an epilogue to this Bison edition.

Ordinary Dogs


Eileen Battersby - 2011
    But her first full-length book is not about international literature or the state of the novel. It is about dogs. Two dogs in particular, with the unlikely names of Bilbo and Frodo. She adopted the first from a horrible dog pound, and the second decided he liked her and moved in to join the family. She was in her very early twenties, an intensely serious student and runner who had just moved to Ireland from California. The dogs became her most loyal companions for over twenty years, witnesses to an often difficult human life and more important to her than most other humans. This book is about two animals with personalities, emotions and prejudices. It is unlike any other book ever written about dogs. It is not sentimental or twee. Battersby became intimately involved in the lives of these intelligent, shrewd creatures, and brings them to life with rare passion and insight. She writes honestly and movingly about the reasons why, for certain people - especially women - there is more integrity in the mysterious relationship with a mammal who cannot speak than there is in most of the relationships that human society has to offer.

Moonshiner's Daughter


Mary Judith Messer - 2010
    Her father, an ardent moonshiner when he wasn't in prison, and her mother, often showing mental illness from an earlier brain injury, raised their four children in some of the grimmest circumstances that you will ever read about. Messer eventually escaped her extreme living conditions by going to live with a family as their mother's helper outside of Washington, DC. She then moved to New York City to join her oldest sister who had fled an abusive arranged marriage when she was fifteen and left behind a young son. These two teenage girls, uneducated but determined, found freedom from their Appalachian abuse yet encountered a culture and some inhabitants who provided scars even so. Messer's memoir is told through the eyes and with the words of a barely educated child and young woman yet their meaning and her descriptions are clear as a mountain stream. Messer changed the names of many people and places she wrote about to protect her still living family members and herself as well. In the final chapter, Messer shares one legacy from her father....he even taught the infamous "Popcorn" Sutton of Maggie Valley how to be a moonshiner when Popcorn was a teenager. The moonshiner's daughter did survive and ultimately thrive. This is her story. You won't be able to put it down.

The Book of a Mormon: The Real Life and Strange Times of an LDS Missionary


Scott D. Miller - 2015
    The next, I was marching in lockstep through the dark, snow-strewn streets of Sweden. Clad in an ill-fitting cheap blue suit—a Book of Mormon in my pocket—I was tasked with nothing less than saving the country of "godless fornicators from certain moral destruction." You've seen us. We are impossible to miss. We are iconic, and now even celebrated in a nine times over, Tony Awarding winning Broadway musical, The Book of Mormon. Most are boys, some girls. We always travel in pairs. Impeccably groomed, always smiling and polite, you can’t mistake us for anyone else. And, if you haven't met us already, we will soon be coming to knock on a door near you. I know. I was one of them. This is my story. Although raised in the LDS faith, nothing could have prepared me for what I experienced. My world was turned upside down. Nothing was as I expected: the country, the work, my fellow missionaries, and most of all, the Church. Had I not gone through the experience myself, I honestly would not believe a word of what follows. And yet, it’s true. Every last bit.

Law Man: Memoir of a Jailhouse Lawyer


Shon Hopwood - 2017
    Those who knew him well would never have imagined that, as a young man, he’d be adrift with few prospects and plotting to rob a bank. But he did, committing five armed bank robberies before being apprehended. Serving ten years in federal prison, Shon feared his life was over. He wasn’t sure if he could survive a cell block, but he was determined to try. Hopwood pumped-up in the prison gym to defend himself and earned respect on the basketball court. He reconnected with the girl of his dreams from high school through letters and prison visits; and, crucially, he talked his way into a job in the prison law library. Hopwood slowly taught himself criminal law and began to help fellow inmates rather than himself. He wrote one petition to the Supreme Court, which was chosen to be heard from over 7,000 other petitions submitted by the greater legal community that year. The Justices voted 9-0 in favor of Hopwood’s petition when the case was finally heard. What might have been considered luck by some, was dispelled when a second petition from him was selected to be heard by the Supreme Court. He didn’t grasp it yet, but Shon’s legal work was the start of a new life. Shon works on policy reform, and he is a cofounder of PrisonProfessors.com. He strives to improve outcomes of America’s prison system, and he tells his amazing story in Law Man.

Jungle: A Harrowing True Story of Survival


Yossi Ghinsberg - 1985
    But when a terrible rafting accident separates him from his partner, Yossi is forced to survive for weeks alone against one of the wildest backdrops on the planet. Stranded without a knife, map, or survival training, he must improvise shelter and forage for wild fruit to survive. As his feet begin to rot during raging storms, as he loses all sense of direction, and as he begins to lose all hope, he wonders whether he will make it out of the jungle alive.The basis of an upcoming motion picture, Jungle is the story of friendship and the teachings of nature, and a terrifying true account that you won’t be able to put down.

Suffer the Little Children


Frances Reilly - 2006
    It was Christmas morning 1956 and Frances was 2 years old. For the next 13 years Frances experienced institutionalized cruelty under the care of her new guardians: she was beaten, raped, and molested on numerous occasions. The nuns stripped her of everything—her best friend, her innocence, even her name— but they could not suppress her spirit and her never-ending hope of a better life. Written with great honesty and integrity, this moving account of childhood suffering is a tragic yet inspiring story. Through it all Frances refused to be broken. This is her account of her resolution to survive and defy the evil that stole her childhood.

Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta


Brian Kolodiejchuk - 2007
    During her lifelong service to the poorest of the poor, Mother Teresa be

The Screwtape Letters / Mere Christianity / Surprised By Joy


C.S. Lewis - 1992
    

Kiss the Sunset Pig: A Canadian's American Road Trip With Exotic Detours


Laurie Gough - 2005
    Heading towards a half-remembered cave on the Pacific coast where her younger, more adventurous self once stayed, she recalls adventures in Sumatra, the Yukon and many places in between—and wonders what compels her to keep moving through life while everyone else has found a place to belong.