The events that followed can only be described as the most profound and extensive near-death experience ever recorded. During the time she was clinically dead, Betty was given knowledge of the afterlife that would make even the greatest skeptic think twice. As she traveled through the spiritual realm, she learned more about the laws and history of the universe than perhaps anyone before her. She explains with uncanny detail the reasons why we have chosen to be on this earth at this time in history, and how all out actions are growing experiences for our immortal spirits. In those few minutes that stretched into eternity, Betty's life was changed forever. In this special unabridged recording of "Embraced by the Light," she shares the vision of a world she never imagined existed, and gives new meaning to the question, "Why are we here?"

    Dr. Chauncey Crandall knows his patients well. When they are dying, he sits at the bedside with them and holds their hands. He prays with them. Sometimes he can feel what they feel and see what they see. At other times his patients have near-death experiences and "come back" with astonishing descriptions of the afterlife. In TOUCHING HEAVEN, Dr. Crandall reveals how what he has seen and heard has convinced him that God is real, that we are created for a divine purpose, that death is not the end, that we will see our departed loved ones again, and that we are closer to the next world than we think.

    Over the course of minutes, they would kill twelve students and a teacher and wound twenty-four others before taking their own lives.   For the last sixteen years, Sue Klebold, Dylan’s mother, has lived with the indescribable grief and shame of that day. How could her child, the promising young man she had loved and raised, be responsible for such horror? And how, as his mother, had she not known something was wrong? Were there subtle signs she had missed? What, if anything, could she have done differently?   These are questions that Klebold has grappled with every day since the Columbine tragedy. In A Mother’s Reckoning, she chronicles with unflinching honesty her journey as a mother trying to come to terms with the incomprehensible. In the hope that the insights and understanding she has gained may help other families recognize when a child is in distress, she tells her story in full, drawing upon her personal journals, the videos and writings that Dylan left behind, and on countless interviews with mental health experts.   Filled with hard-won wisdom and compassion, A Mother’s Reckoning is a powerful and haunting book that sheds light on one of the most pressing issues of our time. And with fresh wounds from the recent Newtown and Charleston shootings, never has the need for understanding been more urgent.  All author profits from the book will be donated to research and to charitable organizations focusing on mental health issues.

    It is a story about the ordinary things - family life, happiness, ambition, and love, but it is also about adventures - meeting princes and presidents, visiting Death Row in America, exploring the sex clubs of Copenhagen. It is a story of a boy blessed with wit and what he got up to and the people he met growing up in the most wonderful city in all the world in those extraordinary years after the Second World War. For Odd Boy Out is about more than Gyles and his exploits: it is also a kaleidoscopic portrait of Britain from the 1950s onwards, featuring a cast drawn from politics, the media, swinging London, stage and screen, from Laurence Olivier to Twiggy.By turns hilarious and moving, and chock full of unforgettable stories, Odd Boy Out is the unexpected and candid autobiography of one of the country's most unlikely personalities. Yet at root it is a powerful and passionate exploration of childhood - how our heritage, our parents and our upbringing make us who we are. ___________________ 'Staggeringly brilliant, funny and touching, I loved it' Joanna Lumley

    Each time she faced the death of a beloved pet, along with the pain came the same questions, to which she could find no answers. Then, mysterious things began to happen that she couldn’t explain, which led her on an incredible journey to uncover the truth. Along with her own extraordinary experiences, she compiled heartwarming and meaningful true stories of everyday people around the world, and discovered compelling evidence that forever erased her own doubts about an afterlife for animals.      This book provides enormous comfort and reassurance to anyone who has ever cherished a pet, and food for thought for anyone who has ever questioned the place of these beloved creatures in the larger scheme of things, both here on Earth and beyond.

    It was a cruel and noisy spirit, given to rapping and gnawing sounds before it found its voices.With these voices and its supernatural acts, the Bell Witch tormented the Bell family. This extraordinary book recounts the only documented case in U.S. history when a spirit actually caused a man's death.The local schoolteacher, Richard Powell, witnessed the strange events and recorded them for his daughter. His astonishing manuscript fell into the hands of novelist Brent Monahan, who has prepared the book for publication. Members of the Bell family have previously provided information on this fascinating case, but this book recounts the tale with novelistic vigor and verve. It is truly chilling.

    The Demonologist reveals the grave religious process behind supernatural events and how it can happen to you. Over twenty years in print, here is the original uncut version of this classic text. Illustrated with photographs of phenomena in progress, every sentence in the book is true. Used as a text in seminaries and classrooms, this is one book you can't put down.

    Concetta Bertoldi has been communicating with the "Other Side" since childhood. In her previous book, the bestselling Do Dead People Watch You Shower?, she addressed questions about the afterlife that ranged from the poignant to the provocative. Now she returns with Do Dead People Walk Their Dogs?, a second volume of intriguing observations about our beloved deceased. Moving, funny, and fascinating, it will open your eyes to what really comes after life—while offering intimate insights into Concetta's own astonishing life and what her gift has meant to her marriage, her friendships, and the path she was destined to take.

    That's all it took to change Stephanie Wittels Wachs' life forever..Her younger brother Harris, a star in the comedy world known for his work on shows like Parks and Recreation, had died of a heroin overdose. How do you make sense of such a tragic end to a life of so much hilarious brilliance?In beautiful, unsentimental, and surprisingly funny prose, Stephanie Wittels Wachs alternates between her brother's struggle with addiction, which she learned about three days before her wedding, and the first year after his death, in all its emotional devastation. This compelling portrait of a comedic genius and a profound exploration of the love between siblings is A Year of Magical Thinking for a new generation of readers.A heartbreaking but hopeful memoir of addiction, grief, and family, Everything is Horrible and Wonderful will make you laugh, cry, and wonder if that possum on the fence is really your brother's spirit animal.

    As this question fills the airwaves with anticipation, their legions of fans continue to multiply and ask a different series of questions, like—Who are these people?What’s the secret to their success? And is Chip actually that funny in real life? By renovating homes in Waco, Texas, and changing lives in such a winsome and engaging way, Chip and Joanna have become more than just the stars of Fixer Upper, they have become America’s new best friends.The Magnolia Story is the first book from Chip and Joanna, offering their fans a detailed look at their life together. From the very first renovation project they ever tackled together, to the project that nearly cost them everything; from the childhood memories that shaped them, to the twists and turns that led them to the life they share on the farm today.They both attended Baylor University in Waco. However, their paths did not cross until Chip checked his car into the local Firestone tire shop where Joanna worked behind the counter. Even back then Chip was a serial entrepreneur who, among other things, ran a lawn care company, sold fireworks, and flipped houses. Soon they were married and living in their first fixer upper. Four children and countless renovations later, Joanna garners the attention of a television producer who notices her work on a blog one day.In The Magnolia Story fans will finally get to join the Gaines behind the scenes and discover:-The time Chip ran to the grocery store and forgot to take their new, sleeping baby-Joanna’s agonizing decision to close her dream business to focus on raising their children-When Chip buys a houseboat, sight-unseen, and it turns out to be a leaky wreck-Joanna’s breakthrough moment of discovering the secret to creating a beautiful home-Harrowing stories of the financial ups and downs as an entrepreneurial couple-Memories and photos from Chip and Jo’s wedding-The significance of the word magnolia and why it permeates everything they do-The way the couple pays the popularity of Fixer Upper forward, sharing the success with others, and bolstering the city of Waco along the wayAnd yet there is still one lingering question for fans of the show: Is Chip really that funny? “Oh yeah,” says Joanna. “He was, and still is, my first fixer upper.”

    Now they must empty and sell the beloved family home, which hasn't been de-cluttered in more than half a century. Twenty-three rooms bulge with history, antiques, and oxygen tanks. Plum remembers her loving but difficult parents who could not have been more different: the British father, a handsome, disciplined patriarch who nonetheless could not control his opinionated,extroverted Southern-belle wife who loved tennis and gin gimlets. The task consumes her, becoming more rewarding than she ever imagined. Items from childhood trigger memories of her eccentric family growing up in a small town on the shores of Lake Ontario in the 1950's and 60's. But unearthing new facts about her parents helps her reconcile those relationships with a more accepting perspective about who they were and what they valued.They Left Us Everything is a funny, touching memoir about the importance of preserving family history to make sense of the past and nurturing family bonds to safeguard the future.

    Perhaps you've seen their pickets on the news, the members holding signs with messages that are too offensive to copy here, protesting at events such as the funerals of soldiers, the 9-year old victim of the recent Tucson shooting, and Elizabeth Edwards, all in front of their grieving families. The WBC is fervently anti-gay, anti-Semitic, and anti- practically everything and everyone. And they aren't going anywhere: in March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the WBC's right to picket funerals.Since no organized religion will claim affiliation with the WBC, it's perhaps more accurate to think of them as a cult. Lauren Drain was thrust into that cult at the age of 15, and then spat back out again seven years later.Lauren spent her early years enjoying a normal life with her family in Florida. But when her formerly liberal and secular father set out to produce a documentary about the WBC, his detached interest gradually evolved into fascination, and he moved the entire family to Kansas to join the church and live on their compound. Over the next seven years, Lauren fully assimilated their extreme beliefs, and became a member of the church and an active and vocal picketer. But as she matured and began to challenge some of the church's tenets, she was unceremoniously cast out from the church and permanently cut off from her family and from everyone else she knew and loved.Banished is the story of Lauren's fight to find herself amidst dramatic changes in a world of extremists and a life in exile.

    Now Alan Alda has written a memoir as elegant, funny, and affecting as his greatest performances."My mother didn't try to stab my father until I was six," begins Alda's irresistible story. The son of a popular actor and a loving but mentally ill mother, he spent his early childhood backstage in the erotic and comic world of burlesque and went on, after early struggles, to achieve extraordinary success in his profession.Yet Never Have Your Dog Stuffed is not a memoir of show-business ups and downs. It is a moving and funny story of a boy growing into a man who then realizes he has only just begun to grow.It is the story of turning points in Alda's life, events that would make him what he is-if only he could survive them.From the moment as a boy when his dead dog is returned from the taxidermist's shop with a hideous expression on his face, and he learns that death can't be undone, to the decades-long effort to find compassion for the mother he lived with but never knew, to his acceptance of his father, both personally and professionally, Alda learns the hard way that change, uncertainty, and transformation are what life is made of, and true happiness is found in embracing them.Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, filled with curiosity about nature, good humor, and honesty, is the crowning achievement of an actor, author, and director, but surprisingly, it is the story of a life more filled with turbulence and laughter than any Alda has ever played on the stage or screen.

    Amy Bruni, co-star of Kindred Spirits and one of the world's leading paranormal investigators, has learned a lot about ghosts over her years of research and first-hand experience. Now, in Life with the Afterlife, she shares the insight she has gleaned and how it has shaped her unique approach to interacting with the spirits of the dead and those who encounter them. From her earliest supernatural encounters as a child, through her years appearing on Ghost Hunters and the creation of her company Strange Escapes, which offers paranormal excursions to some of America's most notoriously haunted destinations, and into her current work on The Travel Channel's Kindred Spirits, this book is full of astonishing and deeply moving stories of Amy's efforts to better understand the dead but not yet departed. With Amy's bright humor and fierce compassion for both those who are haunted and those who are haunting, Life with the Afterlife is an eye-opening look at what connects us as people, in life and beyond.

    No valley is as vast as grief, no journey as personal and life changing. Compassionate and wise guides Raymond Mitsch and Lynn Brookside shine a light on the road through grief. They can help you endure the anguish and uncertainty; understand the cycles of grief; sort through the emotions of anger, guilt, fear, and depression; and face the God who allowed you to lose the one you love. A series of thoughtful daily devotions, Grieving the Loss of Someone You Love shares wisdom, insight, and comfort that will help you through and beyond your grief.