Too Pretty to be Good


Lindsay Byron - 2021
    

Holy Man: Father Damien of Molokai


Gavan Daws - 1973
    Review"Beautifully written, deeply perceptive." -- Los Angeles Times "An absolutely fascinating book." --The Washington Post

Freefall


Tom Read - 1998
    This autobiography is the story of his descent into madness and his attempts to find his way out again.

An Honest Look at a Mysterious Journey


John Stumbo - 2011
    You've stumped us all."They didn't see it coming.They would never be the same.You'll find their story...AuthenticPowerfulHumorousMovingInsightfulRivetingYou may even find it intersecting with your own story.John and Joanna Stumbo have been married twenty-eight years--some great, some not so great. They have three grown children--all great. Joanna grew up in Ohio and Florida and a few other places; John in Minnesota and Montana. They have spent their adult lives figuring out what it means to be pastor and wife in churches from Pennsylvania to Oregon. John has a lifetime love for most anything outdoors and athletic. Joanna loves family and home. John never planned on spending seventy-seven days in the hospital. Joanna never had aspirations of being a caregiver. Neither of them ever planned on writing a book such as this. They are both the better for the journey they've been on, confusing though it be.

Almost Heaven: Coming of Age in West Virginia


Jerry S. Horton - 2014
    A very well written book that will be hard for anyone to put down!This is a must read.Jerry's interesting and riveting account of his childhood years and transition to a young adult and Infantry NCO are truly endearing! His honest and impelling novel reminds one of why we serve, fight, and are willing to lay down our lives for God, Country, and our fellow man. God Bless the Infantryman!!Thank the Lord for Soldiers and West Virginia !This book is a great read. This honest account of growing up in West Virginia and becoming a Sergeant in Vietnam is sometimes thrilling and sometimes heart wrenching. Through a lot of true grit, thank goodness Jerry Horton survived to tell this story. I highly recommend this book. It is a Winner.This is an inspiring memoir written about a young man coming of age in West Virginia in the 1960's. It is a memoir but also a real thriller story as we follow Jerry from the streets surrounding Lincoln playground to Chicago Steel mills to the French Quarter in New Orleans and to San Francisco in the Summer of Love 1967. The book then moves you to the Central Highlands in Vietnam where Jerry is an infantry platoon sergeant. Jerry's interesting and truthful account of his childhood years and transition to an adult and Infantry Sergeant are truly endearing. It is an honest and compelling story. It gives a first person narrative of hand-to-hand combat in the trenches of Vietnam that can leave you scared, glad to be alive and eternally grateful to those who died for our freedom. Jerry joined the army to simply be able to afford to go to college. Forty years later he has a PhD and multiple degrees but they were earned at a heavy price for this patriot. Jerry shares his experiences in Vietnam in an articulate, honest and direct assessment of his time in Vietnam, the men he served with and the horrors of war. It is an incredible story of leadership and survival.We see Jerry develop as a young boy who is very independent and then see him being schooled on the streets of Charleston, West Virginia learning how to come to grips with the breakup and divorce in his family. He takes refuge in becoming the best he could be as a basketball player on the courts of Lincoln playground. Later we see him leaving home for the mean streets of the Chicago Steel mills and then on to Louisiana where he completes one year of college and then goes flat broke. Then the book shifts to New Orleans Louisiana and the excitement of the French Quarter. Jerry's life is rocked by the turbulent waters in New Orleans; he had no money no plan and is drifting. He seeks out another lifestyle in California hitching to and then living in San Francisco during the Summer of Love 1967. He describes how it was, the music and time and place and he takes you there through his vivid descriptions. Once again, his life spins into turmoil and as he tries to get back on the path to achieve his life's dream of going to college he is drafted in the Army. He finds himself becoming a leader, an infantry sergeant. His goal is to bring himself and his men back home alive, the reader gets the sense that all his life Jerry has been prepared for this moment. The reader is taken through and sees through Jerry's eyes what combat is really like.This story covers much ground and has something for everyone. You live through Jerry 's experiences of what it's like to conquer your own demons, you read about his mother's courage having Jerry in the Salvation Army by herself, the excitement and freedom of the 1960's and you learn what it is like to want something so bad you lay your life down for it. It is a book you truly won't lay down once you start reading.

Seven Women: And the Secret of Their Greatness


Eric Metaxas - 2015
    Each of the world-changing figures who stride across these pages—Joan of Arc, Susanna Wesley, Hannah More, Maria Skobtsova, Corrie ten Boom, Mother Teresa, and Rosa Parks—is an exemplary model of true womanhood. Teenaged Joan of Arc followed God’s call and liberated her country, dying a heroic martyr’s death. Susanna Wesley had nineteen children and gave the world its most significant evangelist and its greatest hymn-writer, her sons John and Charles. Corrie ten Boom, arrested for hiding Dutch Jews from the Nazis, survived the horrors of a concentration camp to astonish the world by forgiving her tormentors. And Rosa Parks’ deep sense of justice and unshakeable dignity and faith helped launch the twentieth-century’s greatest social movement.Writing in his trademark conversational and engaging style, Eric Metaxas reveals how the other extraordinary women in this book achieved their greatness, inspiring readers to lives shaped by the truth of the gospel.

Seaworthy: Adrift with William Willis in the Golden Age of Rafting


T.R. Pearson - 2006
    Driven by an unfettered appetite for personal challenge and a yen for the path of most resistance, Willis mounted a single-handed and wholly unlikely rescue in the jungles of French Guiana and then twice crossed the broad Pacific on rafts of his own design, with only housecats and a parrot for companionship. His first voyage, atop a ten-ton balsa monstrosity, was undertaken in 1954 when Willis was sixty. His second raft, having crossed eleven thousand miles from Peru, found the north shore of Australia shortly after Willis's seventieth birthday. A marvel of vigor and fitness, William Willis was a connoisseur of ordeal, all but orchestrating short rations, ship-wreck conditions, and crushing solitude on his trans-Pacific voyages. He'd been inspired by Kon-Tiki, Thor Heyerdahl's bid to prove that a primitive raft could negotiate the open ocean. Willis's trips confirmed that a primitive man could as well. Willis survived on rye flour and seawater, sang to keep his spirits up, communicated with his wife via telepathy, suffered from bouts of temporary blindness, and eased the intermittent pain of a double hernia by looping a halyard around his ankles and dangling upside-down from his mast. Rich with vivid detail and wry humor, Seaworthy is the story of a sailor you've probably never heard of but need to know. In an age when countless rafts were adrift on the waters of the world, their crews out to shore up one theory of ethno-migration or tear down another, Willis's challenges remained refreshingly personal. His methods were eccentric, his accomplishments little short of remarkable. Don't miss the chance to meet this singular monk of the sea.

Courtships of the Prophets


Mary Jane Woodger - 2015
    Nowhere is this timeless tale more beautifully depicted than in the lives of the Presidents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Courtships of the Prophets allows readers a captivating look into some of the most cherished memories of the prophets the earliest moments of romances that endured a lifetime. From the sweet recollections of first encounters to the tender love letters of youth, this volume portrays the histories of some of our latter-day prophets as never before in a heartwarming collection of reminiscences that truly evokes the magic of happy endings.

Dyatlov Pass Keeps Its Secret


Irina Lobatcheva - 2013
    A month later their corpses were found, maimed and broken by eldritch forces. This incident has provoked wild speculation among even the most skeptical crowds, stimulated discussion among every conspiracy theorist in Russia, and haunted the imagination of many a hiker for half a century. Recently, the mystery of so-called "Dyatlov Pass" has undergone a renaissance of interest and has gained international publicity and coverage in the news, Hollywood, and literature. This book provides, in an easy-to-read format, comprehensive, bias-free coverage of the incident--complete with medical autopsy reports, excerpts from legal proceedings connected with the deaths of the hikers, and testimonies from the first responders who found the bodies. In short, this book contains everything one needs to join the ranks of thousands of people trying to uncover the secrets of the Dyatlov Pass.

Woman Of The Boundary Waters: Canoeing, Guiding, Mushing, and Surviving


Justine Kerfoot - 1986
    In 1928, Justine Kerfoot arrived, a Northwestern University graduate headed for medical school until her family lost both their Illinois homes in the stock market crash. Thrust into year-round life at her mother's fledgling summer resort, Justine was confronted with learning survival in the frigid north woods, a challenge she met with extraordinary verve and recounts with great candor and humor in this remarkable book. Kerfoot has paddled all the lakes and streams in this border country, and she knows them well. Her lyrical descriptions of wildlife and seasonal environments express the deep reverence for nature that has become her way of life. In a new afterword, she reflects on the impact of restricted wilderness status on the region - called the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness since 1978 - and on her own convictions about people living in the wild.

Fornication: The "Red Hot Chili Peppers" Story


Jeff Apter - 2004
    Full description

100 Years of Leeds United: 1919-2019


Daniel Chapman - 2018
    Since its foundation in 1919, Leeds United Football Club has seen more ups and downs than most, rising to global fame through an inimitable and uncompromising style in the 70s, clinching the last Division One title of the pre-Sky Sports era in 1992, before becoming the epitome of financial mismanagement at the start of the 21st century. Despite this demise, United remains one of the best supported – and most divisive – clubs in football, with supporters’ clubs dotted across the globe. In 100 Years of Leeds United, Chapman delves deep into the archives to discover the lesser-known episodes, providing fresh context to the folkloric tales that have shaped the club we know today, painting the definitive picture of the West Yorkshire giants.

Wrestling With Madness: John E. Du Pont and the Foxcatcher Farm Murder


Tim Huddleston - 2013
    Part of one of the most prominent and richest families in America: The du Pont Family. Then, strangely, he started losing his mind. This is what is known: du Pont was a fan of amateur sports and established a wrestling facility at his Foxcatcher Farm. He befriended several Olympic champions--including Dave Schultz, who he murdered. It was a never a question of if he did it; the question is why. What turns an otherwise sane man into a psychotic killer? This page-turning true crime story will take you into the mind of a man who had everything and let it all fall away due to madness and paranoia.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous


François Trochu - 1957
    Bernadette and Lourdes. Beautifully illustrated with 77 photographs and images, including lovely photos of St. Bernadette's incorrupt body. Our Lady told her, "I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next." This young French visionary is sure to steal your heart! 416 pgs, PB.

The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels - A Love Story


Ree Drummond - 2011
    Ree's love story with Marlboro Man will sweep you off your feet.