TWENTY THREE


Murray McDonald - 2020
    When Kay Miller arrived as the newly appointed Deputy Sheriff of Vinalhaven Island, she couldn’t have anticipated the chaos that would turn the tranquil island into the murder capital of America.It is down to Kay, the newest member of Knox County Sheriff's Department, assisted by Maine State Detectives Abercrombie and Winters, to uncover the shocking events behind the murders and bring those responsible to justice.As the story twists and turns to its stunning conclusion, nobody could have anticipated the final outcome.

The Beginning


T.A. Walters - 2013
    In the story 'First Shift', Hugh Howey said in an interview that Silo 40 had shut itself down and you wouldn't believe what was going on in silo 40.

The Men We Became: My Friendship with John F. Kennedy, Jr.


Robert T. Littell - 2004
    Kennedy Jr.'s closest confidant. Now, in a beautiful and moving memoir, Littell introduces us to the private John. A story of laughter and sorrow, joy and heartbreak, The Men We Became is an unforgettable memoir.Rob Littell was a freshman at Brown when he met the young JFK, Jr. during orientation week. Although Littell came from a privileged background, it was worlds apart from the glamorous life of the son of the late President and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Eager to be accepted on his own terms, Kennedy admired Littell's irreverence toward his celebrity and they became close friends.John opened up to Littell on a very personal level, revealing the complex and sometimes tense nature of his relationships with his sister and cousins, as well as his mother's extraordinary influence on John-and how they both worked to keep it from being overbearing. John's marriage had its ups and downs and Carolyn had made enemies of some of his friends, but she was in great shape mentally and physically and they were planning to have children. Littell recounts wonderful dinners at Jacqueline Onassis's apartment where she surprised him with his favorite dinner of specially burned hamburgers and weekends at her retreat in Martha's Vineyard where she critiqued their touch football while lying on a chaise lounge, her face covered in cold cream and cucumber slices. As students, Littell and Kennedy bummed around Europe. They slept in Hyde Park, sampled the pleasures of Amsterdam, ran afoul of customs officers and almost got busted at the Ritz Hotel for smoking pot. They even shared apartments in New York City until Jackie summoned them to dinner one day and gently suggested it was time to grow up. The two went on to pursue their professional lives. John trained as a lawyer - and Littell speaks of his friend's anguish at repeatedly failing the bar - and then he founded his own political magazine, which seemed only fitting because Kennedy yearned to live up to the family name and accepted that politics would be his destiny. Later on, Littell was a part of JFK, Jr.'s secret wedding to Carolyn Bessette on Cumberland Island, Georgia, and three years later a pallbearer at his funeral.From shared adventures, private moments and lasting memories, Robert Littell offers a unique look at John F. Kennedy Jr.'s life - one that has never been seen before.

Writing for Bliss: A Seven-Step Plan for Telling Your Story and Transforming Your Life


Diana Raab - 2017
    With techniques and prompts for both the seasoned and novice writer, it will lead you to tap into your creativity through storytelling and poetry, examine how life-changing experiences can inspire writing, pursue self-examination and self-discovery through the written word, and, understand how published writers have been transformed by writing.

What the Animals Taught Me: Stories of Love and Healing from a Farm Animal Sanctuary


Stephanie Marohn - 2012
    Each story illuminates how animals can help us see and embrace others as they truly are and reconnect us with the natural world.Wishing to escape the urban rat race, freelance writer and editor Stephanie Marohn moved to rural northern California in 1993. Life was sweet. She was a busy freelancer. In return for reduced rent, she fed and cared for two horses and a donkey. Her life was full.And then, more farm animals started to appear: a miniature white horse, a donkey, sheep, chickens, followed by deer and other wildlife. Each one needed sanctuary either from abuse, physical injury, or neglect. Marohn took each animal in and gradually turned her 10-acre spread into an animal sanctuary.Each chapter of What the Animals Taught Me focuses on the story of a particular animal that became part of Marohn's life. She shares what she learned from the sheep she rescued from an animal collector, the abused donkey she helped nurse back to health, and many others to remind us that animals have much to teach us about love, compassion, trust, and so many of the qualities we so often try to cultivate in ourselves.A deeply inspiring collection, What the Animals Taught Me awakens our hearts and reminds us that our best life teachers sometimes come covered in fur.

Angel Prayers: Harnessing the Help of Heaven to Create Miracles


Kyle Gray - 2013
    In this book, Kyle Gray reveals how to use affirmative prayer to focus on the positive outcome of a situation rather than praying to change something that is perceived as negative.Learn about: the power of prayer, demonstrated by true stories from Kyle's clients, and his own personal experiences the spiritual laws at play in the world and how your words and intentions affect your life the Angelic Hierarchy, including the 15 Major Archangels and some new ones that can support you on our journey invocations and prayers to call specific Angels and Archangels. The final section of the book has a collection of daily and evening prayers, followed by an A–Z directory of prayers for all of life's major events - from relationships and creating abundance to healing dis-ease. Get ready to open up to the beautiful world of angel prayers – and to see miraculous results!

Leading from Within: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Lead


Sam M. Intrator - 2007
    The contributors represent a wide range of professions including Vanguard Group founder John Bogle, MoveOn.org cofounder Joan Blades, several members of Congress, Christian activist Brian McLaren, business guru Peter Senge, and many other leaders from business, medicine, education, nonprofits, law, politics and government, and religion. In their reflections, these leaders explore how they have been inspired by poets such as T.S. Eliot, Mary Oliver, William Stafford, Langston Hughes, Pablo Neruda, Robert Frost, Rumi, May Sarton, Wallace Stevens, Wendell Berry, and Rainer Maria Rilke. Leading from Within is perhaps the most soulful treatment of leadership ever composed. Leadership is first an inner quest, and there is absolutely no better place to explore your inner territory than in the pages of this book. This is an evocative work of art; do yourself an immense favor, and engage with these amazing and diverse leaders and their poems.--Jim Kouzes, coauthor of the bestselling The Leadership Challenge and A Leader's LegacyLeading from Within makes brilliant use of the world's great poets to inspire us to lead with our hearts as well as our heads. It calls to the deeper purpose and meaning within all of us to use our gifts to serve others.--Bill George, author, True North: Discover Your Authentic LeadershipThis is a superb collection of poems and deeply personal reflections from a wide range of real leaders. It is a gift to all of us who believe in bringing our hearts to our work. --Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.)The entries in this wonderful anthology are a joy to read and all the more interesting because of their special meaning to the leaders who recommended them. It is a book that every nonprofit leader should place among those they draw upon for inspiration every day.--Diana Aviv, president and CEO, Independent SectorLeading from Within offers a candid view straight into the heart and soul of leaders striving to do good and effective work in the world. The poems and commentaries remind us that leadership is always deeply personal and chock-full of dilemmas that must be addressed by creativity, passion, imagination, and courage.--Jeff Swartz, president and CEO, Timberland

American Band: Music, Dreams, and Coming of Age in the Heartland


Kristen Laine - 2007
    a world where salvation and ambition and teenage angst collide in strange ways no outsider could ever understand, unless you read American Band." --Michael Bamberger, author of Wonderland: A Year in the Life of an American High School Every fall, marching bands take to the field in a uniquely American ritual. From the stands, it looks easy. You don’t see them sweat. For millions of kids, band is more than a show. It’s a rite of passage—a first foray into leadership and adult responsibility, and a chance to learn what it means to be part of a community. Nowhere is band more serious than at Concord High School in Elkhart, Indiana, where the entire town is involved with the success of its defending state champion band, the Marching Minutemen. In the place where this tradition may have originated, in the city that became the band instrument capital of the world, band is a religion. But it’s not the only religion, as director Max Jones discovers. After four decades, Jones’s single-minded devotion to musical excellence has fallen out of step with a younger generation increasingly focused on personal salvation. In what his students do not know is his final season of directing, he has assembled his most ambitious show ever, for the strongest senior class he has ever directed. Amid conflicting notions of greatness, the band marches through a season that starts in hope and promise, progresses through uncertainty and disappointment, and ends, ultimately, in redemption. AMERICAN BAND is an unusually intimate chronicle of life, in all its triumph, disappointment, and drama, in the kind of community in which most of America lives. It is an especially timely portrait, capturing as it does the spirit of the heartland at a time of profound change. If you have ever been—or yearned to be—part of something bigger than yourself, you will be rooting for the kids whose voices fill this book.

Cheetah Chrome: A Dead Boy's Tale: From the Front Lines of Punk Rock


Cheetah Chrome - 2010
    It’s a tale of success--and excess: great music, drugs (he overdosed and was pronounced dead three times), and resurrection.The Dead Boys, with roots in the band Rocket from the Tombs, came out of Cleveland to dominate the NYC punk scene in the mid-1970s. Their hit “Sonic Reducer” soon became a punk anthem. Now, for the first time, Cheetah dishes on the people he’s known onstage and off, including the Dead Boys’ legendary singer Stiv Bators, Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls, the Ramones, the Clash, Pere Ubu, and the Ghetto Dogs, as well as life at CBGBs, a year with Nico, and more.Straight from the man, these are the backstage stories that every punk fan will want to hear. Never mind the Sex Pistols, here’s Cheetah Chrome!

Help Me I'm A Hypochondriac!: From Headache to Hypochondria - How I Beat Health Anxiety


Philip Martins - 2017
     Do you constantly get anxious about your health and seek reassurance? Have you found yourself analysing every single sensation in your body? Are you spending time on the internet always looking for answers? Do you have heart palpatations that make you think you're having a heart attack? Does that impending heart attack give you a panic attack? Are you still not dead? You can rest assured it's not just you! Philip Martins was once a hypochondriac and has survived, among other things, cancer, motor neurone disease, meningitis, multiple sclerosis and having been bitten by a mosquito once, malaria. In this book he tells you how he got through his years of health anxiety, provides some anecdotes of his crazier times to cheer you up and gives you some tips all in the hope that it can bring a little relief to help you realise you're not alone. If you have health anxiety and are looking for something to relate to then this is the book for you.

Ben and Irene: A Love Story


Terri Edmund White - 2016
    The story of a couple who meet quite by chance and cross paths later, to the fall in love and live a Camelot-like life, sadly interrupted by tragedy.

Less Mess Less Stress: Minimalist Routines To Declutter Your Environment, Unload Your Mind And Optimize Your Day


Zoe McKey - 2017
     “Good enough” is not the life you deserve - you deserve the best, and the good news is that you can have it. Learn the surprising truth that it’s not by doing more, but less with Less Mess Less Stress. We know that we own too much, we say yes for too many engagements, and we stick to more than we should. Physical, mental and relationship clutter are daily burdens we have to deal with. Change your mindset and live a happier life with less. This book will help you if: • You’re committed to reducing stress in your life • You wish to get rid of things and keep order around you • You feel mentally overwhelmed, and you seek real solutions how to simplify your days • Want to be a more understanding and patient friend or spouse • You seek for real life examples on how to change your life for the better with the help of minimalism Minimalism is an inversely proportional process: the less you do, the more will you have. And the less you keep, the happier you’ll be. What else will you get if you read in Less Mess Less Stress: • A step by step guide how did I got rid of 75% of my things • Real life examples and techniques how to reduce mental clutter • Comprehensive guide how to make your relationships more enjoyable and less stressful • Stories and tips from the “best minimalists” of the world, who are not superstars, but real people • Finally, a monthly guide for 2017 how to keep the minimalist mindset active in your life In Less Mess Less Stress you’ll find real and applicable tips and advice. I will share with you my own story about decluttering my entire life. I made this book less strict; I approached it with humor, and genuine encouragement to make you feel you’re among friends here. Because minimalism is not a must, but a choice without any pressure or negative consequence. To start your stress- free minimalist routine today, hit the buy now button on the top-right corner of this page!

Reversed: A Memoir


Lois Letchford - 2018
    Nothing is impossible when one digs deep,and looks at students through a new lens.

Specifications Grading: Restoring Rigor, Motivating Students, and Saving Faculty Time


Linda B. Nilson - 2014
    She argues that the grading system most commonly in use now is unwieldy, imprecise and unnecessarily complex, involving too many rating levels for too many individual assignments and tests, and based on a hairsplitting point structure that obscures the underlying criteria and encourages students to challenge their grades.This new specifications grading paradigm restructures assessments to streamline the grading process and greatly reduce grading time, empower students to choose the level of attainment they want to achieve, reduce antagonism between the evaluator and the evaluated, and increase student receptivity to meaningful feedback, thus facilitating the learning process - all while upholding rigor. In addition, specs grading increases students' motivation to do well by making expectations clear, lowering their stress and giving them agency in determining their course goals. Among the unique characteristics of the schema, all of which simplify faculty decision making, are the elimination of partial credit, the reliance on a one-level grading rubric and the -bundling- of assignments and tests around learning outcomes. Successfully completing more challenging bundles (or modules) earns a student a higher course grade. Specs grading works equally well in small and large class settings and encourages -authentic assessment.- Used consistently over time, it can restore credibility to grades by demonstrating and making transparent to all stakeholders the learning outcomes that students achieve.This book features many examples of courses that faculty have adapted to spec grading and lays out the surprisingly simple transition process. It is intended for all members of higher education who teach, whatever the discipline and regardless of rank, as well as those who oversee, train, and advise those who teach.Specification grading promotes the following values and outcomes. It: 1. Upholds High Academic Standards2. Reflects Student Attainment of Skills and Knowledge 3. Motivates Students to Learn and to Excel4. Fosters Higher-Order Cognitive Development and Creativity5. Discourages Cheating6. Reduces Student Stress7. Makes Students Feel Responsible for Their Grades8. Minimizes Conflict Between Faculty and Students9. Saves Faculty Time and Is Simple to Administer10. Makes Expectations Clear and Simplifies Feedback for Improvement11. Assesses Authentically12. Achieves High Inter-Rater Agreement

The Teacher's Guide to Self-Care: Build Resilience, Avoid Burnout, and Bring a Happier and Healthier You to the Classroom


Sarah Forst - 2020