*Includes some of Martin's most colorful quotes. *Includes a Bibliography for further reading. "If people want to think I get drunk and stay out all night, let 'em. That's how I got here, you know." - Dean Martin A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history's most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors' American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America's most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. Like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin is an American legend for his longevity and success across a garden variety of different platforms. Martin began as a nightclub singer, performed in a comedy act, starred in films, recorded hit albums, and capped his career by serving as a television host. In fact, there may be no star who was better able to transcend the different avenues of entertainment. Martin's success was made all the more amazing by the fact that he never had to change his personality or persona to find success in his different endeavors. From the beginning, Martin's public persona remained largely unchanged. He grew more famous and wealthy, but he always remained the smooth-talking Italian with the easy charm and the cool veneer. As Jerry Lewis noted in his memoirs about Martin, "Dean had this uncanny way of making everything bad look like it wasn't all that bad." If anything, Martin suggested that no matter the circumstances, people can always face their situation with leisurely charm. Martin's versatility is unprecedented even today, an era in which stars routinely alternate between film and musical careers. Martin was able to simultaneously work across different media at the same time; even after rising to fame as a singer, he continued to perform with Jerry Lewis and star in films. But after his film career took off, he continued to perform the crooning style of music that had made him famous and had long since been outdated. While other actors were forced to drastically alter their persona to keep up with the times, Martin's ability to fuse suave glamour with an everyday ordinariness ensured he didn't need to transform anything. Martin's life and career are often compared to his close friend and contemporary Frank Sinatra, and for good reason. Both came from proud Italian families, both were cohorts in the famed Rat Pack in the 1960s, and they each maintained success even late in their careers. However, Sinatra's career was filled with far more ups and downs than Martin, and his public image experienced highs and lows along with it. It's also somewhat ironic that it was Martin who Anglicized his name but remained a bigger Italian icon than Sinatra. They each began their careers as Italian crooners, but Martin maintained his style while Sinatra adopted a brasher, more "All-American" singing method. Martin never strayed far from his humble background, even as he became one of America's biggest stars. American Legends: The Life of Dean Martin profiles the life and career of one of America's most famous performers. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Dean Martin like you never have before, in no time at all.

    He spoke to his pregnant wife on the telephone before he began his evacuation after the South Tower fell. Sensing something ominous, Pasquale crouched down and huddled into a corner of the stairwell as the 110-story tower came crashing down around him. He survived the tower collapse and woke up in the open air hours later on The Pile, a stack of debris seven stories high. The firemen who rescued Pasquale shared his remarkable story of survival with the media, as did others who cared for him that day. His story became a myth, an urban legend, and an enigma that gave rise to much speculation. Here he tells his story in captivating detail of falling and "surfing' the collapse of the North Tower.Visit www.911surfer.com for more details.

    Thomas wrote, then turn to The One-Minute Aquinas, the fast-paced book that provides busy readers with simple, readable explanations of the truths that, for 750 years now, have caused the works of St. Thomas to be sought out by kings and popes, scholars and saints, as well as by ordinary souls like you — hungry to know God and to love him more and more.In this book’s lucid pages, author Kevin Vost gives you small, digestible portions of St. Thomas’s life-giving wisdom that you can enjoy one minute at a time. Tables and graphics will help you grasp and remember St. Thomas’s key ideas with a minimum of time and effort.Best of all, in The One-Minute Aquinas you’ll find quick, sure refutations of the countless relativistic, secular, and pseudoscientific ideas that are so influential in our culture today — and so shallow, contradictory, and wrong!Pope John Paul II declared that “the Church has been justified in consistently proposing St. Thomas as a master of thought and a model of the right way to do theology.” Now The One-Minute Aquinas enables even those with limited time and only a modest education to benefit from the wisdom of this great saint.Here, with minimal effort and among scores of other things, you’ll finally come to know and understand:--Why God permits evil--Heaven: what it is (and is not)--Five simple proofs that God exists--Why God became man--Why Jesus let himself be tempted--How you can grow quickly in virtue--Why all souls need the sacraments--Why Jesus let himself be crucified--The causes of lust--The natural law and the Commandments--The soul, free will, sin, and damnation--The angels, their ranks, and their powers--How God governs (and refrains from governing)--God’s power and its limits--The Bible: why didn’t Jesus just write it himself?--The surprising qualities of our resurrected bodies

     Make no mistake about it, it was a war targeting the insidious nature of the mob and their detrimental effect on Rhode Island and throughout New England. Indeed, the book reveals the extensive nature of Organized Crime throughout the United States. From the opening moments detailing a mob enforcer’s near death in a hail of gunfire to the potentially deadly confrontation between then Detective Brendan Doherty and a notorious mob associate, Gerard Ouimette, this book puts you right there in the middle. Most books on the mob tell a sanitized story of guys who relished their time as mobsters. As Nicholas Pileggi, author of “Wiseguys,” put it, “most mob books are the egomaniacal ravings of an illiterate hood masquerading as a benevolent godfather.” This is not that kind of book. This is the story of the good guys. It’s just the way it was.

    Written by his wife, Alice, also a highly respected Catholic thinker, this is a fascinating, moving and, at times, gripping account of a truly great man of the Church... Full description

    Knowing the necessity and value of prayer isn't necessarily enough to make it a pleasant task. This best-selling book can how you how to make the time you spend with God each day a delightful one. Lea shares the teaching and experiences that have helped him to transform his prayer life from drudgery to delight. It can do the same for yours. Using the Lord's prayer as a model, Lea will show you how to spend an hour each day in prayer and find joy in it. Learning to "tarry one hour" will help you discover a way of entering into God's presence that will change your life. "Lea's book is sparking church growth and influencing the prayer lives of thousands." Yoida Full Gospel Church bulletin Seoul, Korea "Using the revelation on the Lord's prayer as Larry Lea teaches in Could You Not Tarry One Hour? over 100 people rally together for an hour of prayer daily. This has radically transformed our state resulting in approximately 50,000 salvations." Rev. Gary Whetstone, pastor Victory Christian Fellowship, New Castle, Delaware

    He is the founder of Infosys, a global software consulting company which he started with six other professionals and a seed capital of Rs. 10,000 in 1981. Not only did NRNM lead it to become a top ranking Information Technology company in the world, he also showed that it is possible to do business ethically and achieve success without bending any laws or making compromises.This book takes you through the fascinating journey of a seventeen year old who had to sacrifice his entry into the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology because his father did not have money to pay his fees, and who ultimately came up in life to head a global Information Technology company. NRN Murthy had no money, no family backing, but just a quiet gritty determination, and faith in what he believed was the future of business. The one constant factor throughout his life journey has been the adherence to the values he imbibed from his family, which he has personally and professionally lived by-hard work, fairness, decency, honesty, transparency, striving for excellence and belief in meritocracy. It is on the bedrock of these values that Infosys continues to stand firm and prosper despite the fact that NRN stepped down as CEO in 2002.Iconic leader, living legend, one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time-NRN is all this and more. A man who set new standards of business growth and corporate governance. Written by Ritu Singh, the author of President Pratibha Patil, this book will surely inspire all the readers.

    They have won 11 World Series titles and some of the most famousplayers in the history of the game have worn the storied “Birds on the Bat”uniform.While thaton-field success has been well documented, IntentionalWalk is the first book which goes beyond the story of what happens on thefield to take an in-depth look at the men inside the Cardinal uniforms, andexamine how their strong Christian faith is one of the driving forces behindtheir success.Intentional Walk features the stories of AdamWainwright, David Freese, Lance Berkman, Matt Holliday, Carlos Beltran, JasonMotte and other members of the 2012 Cardinals, written as those players and therest of the team tried to repeat the 2011 world championship. The book talksabout how they became Christians and offers their testimony about what it meansfor them to have God play such a prominent role in their lives.Playing forfirst-year manager Mike Matheny, a strong Christian as well, these men talkabout their success and failure, about the challenges that come from playingbaseball at the highest level, and how thankful and blessed they are to havethat God-given ability. In the end, however, what is far more important to themis their life-long relationship they have established with Jesus Christ.

    But she was a woman with a will whose strength has been matched by few souls in history. Mother Teresa broke death’s stranglehold on the poor of Calcutta, and she showed us how to conquer the sin and darkness in what she called the “slums of the hearts of modern man.” Part biography and part spiritual reading, these pages bring to light little-known stories from Mother Teresa’s life that will help you to grow in your love of God. You will learn her approach to reading Scripture, what enabled her to persevere through agonizing nights, and the remarkable — some would say mystical — events that led her to start the Missionaries of Charity. In considering Mother Teresa, her private visions, and her secret sufferings, David Scott has discovered scores of early episodes and chance encounters that point to later, larger meanings. These remarkable patterns, he suggests, show that Mother Teresa’s life was choreographed from above, as if a divine script had been written for her from before her birth. In these pages, you will meet for the first time the Mother Teresa who challenged the ancient Goddess of Death and became the first saint of our global village. You will read as she describes, in long-secret letters, the dark night of her soul. The woman you will meet is one that God himself sent to you as a clear sign that despite pain and suffering in our lives and in our world, God’s good love will prevail . . . beginning in the slums of our hearts. We are all called to holiness, and the saints are sent to us as “real life” examples of God’s love. With Mother Teresa as your guide, you’ll learn how to follow God’s call and find holiness in a world marked by the shadow of death and growing indifference to God. Indeed, you’ll learn how to be an everyday missionary of Christ’s love in the ordinary activities of your daily life.

    It was the worst bloodbath to take place in more than a century in the heart of the supreme authority of the world's one billion Roman Catholics. Four hours later, the Vatican announced that the lance corporal, twenty-three-year-old Cédric Tornay, had shot the couple, then committed suicide in "a fit of madness" brought on by frutstration with the unit's discipline - a conclusion it reaffirmed after a nine-month internal inquiry.But as John Follain's hard-hitting exposé shows, the official report was a travesty, a tissue of suppositions, contradictions, and omissions. Based on an exhaustive three-year investigation - the first independent attempt to establish the truth - 'City of Secrets' reveals how the Vatican, the oldest and most secretive autocracy in the world, staged an elaborate plot to obstruct justice and hide the scandals it dares not confess. Echoing the pace and plotting of a highstakes thriller, Follain's true-life tale of intrigue moves from the guards' barracks and the pope's palace in Vatican City to Paris, Berlin, and the Swiss Alps, and features a fascinating cast: an old, suffering John Paul II; his chief bodyguard, formerly accused of spying for the Soviet bloc; a mysterious priest punished by the Vatican; and the powerful Opus Dei sect.Timely and explosive, 'City of Secrets' is the story of a still-unsolved crime committed on holy territory, and of a systematic attempt to hide the fatal failings of a security force charged with protecting one of the world's most influential leaders.

    We want to know! We want to know the purpose of our life, why we are here on earth, where we came from, whether there is a God, who this God is, whether there is an afterlife, and so much more! These most basic and fundamental questions are hopefully in the forefront of our minds. And if they are not, it's never too late to start! This book offers some of the answers to these questions. It offers the answers found is our Creed. At first, the Creed can seem dry and unimpressive. It can even seem confusing and overly academic. But when properly understood, the Creed holds the answer to the questions we so deeply seek.

    But in the first half of the nineteenth century, the foundations upon which the church had rested for centuries were shaken. In the eyes of many thoughtful people, liberalism in the guise of liberty, equality, and fraternity was the quintessence of the evils that shook those foundations. At the Vatican Council of 1869-1870, the church made a dramatic effort to set things right by defining the doctrine of papal infallibility.In Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church, John W. O'Malley draws us into the bitter controversies over papal infallibility that at one point seemed destined to rend the church in two. Archbishop Henry Manning was the principal driving force for the definition, and Lord Acton was his brilliant counterpart on the other side. But they shrink in significance alongside Pope Pius IX, whose zeal for the definition was so notable that it raised questions about the very legitimacy of the council. Entering the fray were politicians such as Gladstone and Bismarck. The growing tension in the council played out within the larger drama of the seizure of the Papal States by Italian forces and its seemingly inevitable consequence, the conquest of Rome itself.Largely as a result of the council and its aftermath, the Catholic Church became more pope-centered than ever before. In the terminology of the period, it became ultramontane.

    We'll hear of the great love stories ranging from Johnny Cash and June Carter in the 1960s to Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, who married in 2005. We'll get the truth of the tragedies that led to the loss of three stars all in the same month, starting the rumor of the "Opry Curse." We'll learn how after being stabbed, shot, and maimed, Trace Adkins calls his early honky-tonk years "combat country," and we'll find inspiration from DeFord Bailey, an African American harmonica player in 1927 crippled by childhood polio who rose to fame as one of the first Opry stars. Our hearts will break for Willie Nelson, who lost his only son on Christmas Day, and soar for Amy Grant and Vince Gill, who found true love. Based on over 150 firsthand interviews with the stars of The Grand Ole Opry, these are stories that tell the heart of country--the lives that are lived and inspire the songs we love.

    And though I miss her physical presence, the writing of this work has allowed me to once again spend long hours with her and share her essence with others. This final book in the canon captures the last bittersweet years of a faithful woman who, in her grand silence and through her pain, touched more lives and did more good than anyone imagined. It also gives us an opportunity to have one last visit with the sister we called ‘Mother.’” – Raymond Arroyo   For more than a decade, the beloved, wise cracking nun who founded EWTN, the world’s largest religious media empire, was confined to her cell at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Hanceville, Alabama.  Though Mother Angelica is still seen and heard by millions each week in reruns on seven continents, the private drama within her monastery, her personal supernatural encounters, and the prolonged suffering she endured has remained hidden. Until now.   In a moving, dramatic conclusion to his four New York Times bestselling Mother Angelica books, Raymond Arroyo completes the saga of this singular nun with his most intimate book yet. Here are Mother Angelica’s spiritual battles in her cell—including encounters with the devil. Revealed for the first time is the personal request Mother made of God—which sheds light on her long silence.  Here are the unrevealed episodes of hilarity and inspiration; from playing possum (to avoid undesirable visitors to her room), to undertaking a secret trip to the far East, to blessing her nuns as they leave her care to create new monasteries, Mother Angelica’s spunky spirit shines through the narrative.   Mother Angelica Her Grand Silence, the touching, climactic coda to the Mother Angelica canon also offers readers the personal testimonies of people around the world who were spiritually transformed by Mother during her long public absence. And for the first time, the author writes movingly of his personal relationship with Mother—the highs and the lows.   Eleven years after the release of the definitive biography of Mother Angelica, audiences want to know the rest of her story. This is it.From the Hardcover edition.

    * How the Vatican's Office of Exorcism drives out demons and battles Satanic evil in today's world