Out and Back recounts Allen's fight to rehabilitate her body, rebuild her belief in herself, and return to the life and sport she loves.

    Clyde Brooks gives us a first hand view of the life and times of a country veterinarian and insight into the miracle of medicine and compassion. the formula for the healing art. Tending Critters in the Ridges carries the reader from muck and manure of the pig pen to the sterility of a surgical room and all the places in between. It is a timeless story that lifts the spirits and let's you know why the people of this rural town consider the veterinarian as their family's other doctor.

    It will lead you to hate doctors, lawyers, and insurance companies. By the time you finish, you’ll have fallen in love with Kim. This deeply inspiring tale is destined to become the most important book ever written about chronic pain and pain management in today’s healthcare environment.

    A community rich with diverse cultures, humour and warmth; but behind closed doors, mopping up her Mother’s blood became a gruesome task all too familiar in a world of domestic violence, oppression and neglect. A story of alcohol fuelled domestic abuse, of secret lives beyond the windows veiled by the pristine white net curtains; which proudly proclaimed a women’s worth as much as a black eye marked her not as a victim, but as a man’s property. Though amidst the stark reality of a bygone era, there is also an affectionate account of love and family bonds on a street that often echoed with the sounds of children’s laughter.

    She has survived brutality and discrimination with astonishing resilience and optimism. "Horrifying, heartbreaking, informative and inspiring." "A story from the heart...a riveting memoir." "An eye-opening view of life on the streets and beyond." "Cry Purple chronicles a shattered life, rebuilt through sheer determination, courage and faith." "The most inspiring story I've ever read. A must-read filled with hope."

    She just knew she felt her best when she was empty, "like a straw", as she says "something you could blow through."For almost thirty years, Susan Burton has hidden her obsession with food and the secret life of compulsive eating and starving that dominated her adolescence. This is the relentlessly honest, fiercely intelligent story of living with both anorexia and binge-eating disorder, moving past her shame, and learning to tell her secret.When Burton was thirteen, her stable life in suburban Michigan was turned upside down by her parents' abrupt divorce, and she moved to Colorado with her mother and sister. She seized on this move west as an adventure and an opportunity to reinvent herself from middle-school nerd to popular teenage girl. But she hadn't escaped unscathed, and in the fallout from her parents' breakup, an inherited fixation on thinness went from "peculiarity to pathology." She entered into a painful cycle of anorexia and binge eating that formed a subterranean layer to her sunny life. She went from success to success--she went to Yale, scored a dream job at a magazine right out of college, and married her college boyfriend. But in college the compulsive eating got worse--she'd binge, swear it would be the last time, and then, hours later, do it again--and after she graduated she descended into anorexia, her attempt to "quit food."Binge eating is more prevalent than anorexia or bulimia, but there is less research and little storytelling to help us understand it. In tart, soulful prose Susan Burton strikes a blow for the importance of this kind of story; brings to life an indelible cast of characters; and tells an exhilarating story of longing, compulsion and hard-earned self-revelation.

    A cultural phenomenon by age twenty-six, she had fame, money, respecteverything she had always wanted except that one, true thing: happiness. For all of her professional success, Wurtzel felt like a failure. She had lost friends and lovers, every magazine job she'd held, and way too much weight. She couldn't write, and her second book was past due. But when her doctor prescribed Ritalin to help her focus-and boost the effects of her antidepressants -- Wurtzel was spared. The Ritalin worked. And worked. The pills became her sugar...the sweetness in the days that have none. Soon she began grinding up the Ritalin and snorting it. Then came the cocaine, then more Ritalin, then more cocaine. Then I need more. I always need more. For all of my life I have needed more... More, Now, Again is the brutally honest, often painful account of Wurtzel's descent into drug addiction. It is also a love story: How Wurtzel managed to break free of her relationship with Ritalin and learned to love life, and herself, is at the heart of this ultimately uplifting memoir that no reader will soon forget.

    But under the surface was a wild instability. The only child of parents continually battling drug and alcohol addictions, Madden confronted her environment alone. Facing a culture of assault and objectification, she found lifelines in the desperately loving friendships of fatherless girls.With unflinching honesty and lyrical prose, spanning from 1960s Hawai'i to the present-day struggle of a young woman mourning the loss of a father while unearthing truths that reframe her reality, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls is equal parts eulogy and love letter. It's a story about trauma and forgiveness, about families of blood and affinity, both lost and found, unmade and rebuilt, crooked and beautiful.

    In his essays, personal stories combine with piercing intellect to reflect both on the state of American society and on his experiences with abuse, which conjure conflicted feelings of shame, joy, confusion and humiliation. Laymon invites us to consider the consequences of growing up in a nation wholly obsessed with progress yet wholly disinterested in the messy work of reckoning with where we’ve been.In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to his trek to New York as a young college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, Laymon asks himself, his mother, his nation, and us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free.A personal narrative that illuminates national failures, Heavy is defiant yet vulnerable, an insightful, often comical exploration of weight, identity, art, friendship, and family that begins with a confusing childhood—and continues through twenty-five years of haunting implosions and long reverberations.

    We set impossible standards and feel bad about ourselves when we don't reach them. Is beauty truly that difficult to attain? Or could it be that our idea of what's beautiful is simply too narrow?With engaging personal stories and dramatic before-and-after photography, filmmaker Rebecca Friedlander uncovers the true beauty of 12 women from various ethnicities and backgrounds, empowering us to shatter the lies of rejection, doubt, and low self-esteem. Utilizing compelling biblical truth and questions for personal reflection, Friedlander helps us identify our own personal battlegrounds, celebrate our uniqueness, and embrace God's definition of beautiful.Anyone who loves a great makeover story or who wants to explore their unique identity will love this eye-opening book. Let's stop letting the world define beauty and start being a voice that tells the world what true beauty actually looks like.

    The name alone evokes fashion and perfume, emancipation and allure. In this revealing, intimate biography, Axel Madsen brings to life Gabrielle Coco Chanel, who was born an illegitimate pauper and rose to become the reigning queen of fashion who revolutionized women's styles forever.Madsen traces Chanel's extrordinary life, from her beginnings as an orphan, to the first small boutique she opened in 1910, using her lover's financial backing, to the founding of the House of Chanel where she altered the look of fashion entirely, inventing sportswear, the little black dress, costume jewelry, and the perfume that Marilyn Monroe said was all she wore to bed. Although loved by many men, Coco remained wed only to her business, and when she died in 1971, at the age of eighty-eight, she was wealthy, an international celebrity, and utterly alone.Lavishly illustrated with photographs of Coco Chanel and her celebrated circle of friends and lovers, Chanel: A Woman of Her Own is the story of the magnificent woman whose legend lives on.

    Written with passion and openness, this forty-day journey offers stories from Head's past and present, as he speaks candidly about his bouts of depression since finding God, his struggles against the darkness as he's tried to understand his faith, and how, through these times of weakness, God's written word has been one of the keys to making him stronger than he's ever been. Applying both the Old and New Testaments to every aspect of his life--from his time with Korn to his new solo career to his life-altering decisions to his relationship with his daughter--Head details how, no matter what the issue, God has always provided the guidance he's needed to become a stronger person.One part journal chronicling his evolving relationship with God, one part spiritual testament to the undeniable strength of the Bible, "Stronger" is a devotional unlike any other--both a moving tribute to the transformative power of the word and a no-holds-barred look at what it means to give yourself completely to Jesus Christ.

    This River picks up where Brown left off in his first memoir, describing his tenuous relationship with sobriety, telling of agonizing relapses, and tracking his attempts to become a better father.This is the heartbreaking and at times uplifting tale of Brown’s battles, peeking into his former life as an addict and detailing his subsequent ascent to sobriety and fight for redemption.

    Jung's early business of flying marijuana into the United States from the mountains of Mexico took a dramatic turn when he met Carlos Lehder, a young Colombian car thief with connections to the then newly born cocaine operation in his native land. Together they created a new model for selling cocaine, turning a drug used primarily by the entertainment elite into a massive and unimaginably lucrative enterprise-- one whose earnings, if legal, would have ranked the cocaine business as the sixth largest private enterprise in the Fortune 500.The ride came to a screeching halt when DEA agents and Florida police busted Jung with three hundred kilos of coke, effectively unraveling his fortune. But George wasn't about to go down alone. He planned to bring down with him one of the biggest cartel figures ever caught.With a riveting insider account of the lurid world of international drug smuggling and a super-charged drama of one man's meteoric rise and desperate fall, Bruce Porter chronicles Jung's life using unprecedented eyewitness sources in this critically acclaimed true crime classic.

    From her first frightening night at a shelter, Janice knew she was in over her head. She was beaten up, shaken down, and nearly stabbed by a pregnant girl. But it was still better than living at home. As Janice slipped further into street life, she nevertheless attended high school, harbored crushes, and even played the lead in the spring musical. She also roamed the streets, clubs, bars, and parks of New York City with her two best girlfriends, on the prowl for hard drugs and boys on skateboards. Together they scored coke at Danceteria, smoked angel dust in East Village squats, commiserated over their crazy mothers, and slept with one another’s boyfriends on a regular basis. A wry, mesmerizing portrait of being underprivileged, underage, and underdressed in 1980s New York City, Girlbomb provides an unflinching look at street life, survival sex, female friendships, and first loves.“A fast and engrossing read in the spirit of Girl, Interrupted.”–Entertainment Weekly“Gripping . . . a wry, compelling memoir of what it means to stand up for yourself, especially when no one else will.”–Bust“How satisfying to watch Erlbaum survive adolescence and produce a smart, engaging book.”–The New York Times Book Review“Erlbaum’s survival is hard-won, the journey rendered with page-turning intensity.”–New York Post“A fast and engrossing read in the spirit of Girl, Interrupted.”–Entertainment Weekly“Gritty . . . perversely riveting. You want her to survive.”–The Washington Post Book World