Book picks similar to
Crack the Code!: Activities, Games, and Puzzles That Reveal the World of Coding by Sarah Hutt
nonfiction
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Angels to the Rescue: Inspirational Real-Life Stories from an ER Doctor
Robert D. Lesslie - 2017
Join first responders and ER doctors as they encounter life-or-death situations, putting their training and beliefs to the test. Be uplifted as you meet real-life angels, such as
Elton, a daring highway patrolman who risks it all to prevent disaster
James, the orthopedic tech with a God-given talent for mending hearts
Shep, a principled fire captain whose most important lesson spares one of his own
Denton, the tireless paramedic who rescues an injured man...from a hospital
Maybelle, a faithful nursery volunteer who makes a life-saving diagnosis
As you read these heart-pounding stories of faith in the face of impossible odds, you'll be reminded that a loving and merciful God appoints angels, those you can and cannot see, to watch over you and intervene on your behalf.
All in: What It Takes to Be the Best
Gene Chizik - 2011
As he recounts his journey, he opens up about the pivotal role his faith has played in his life and career, and he shares his time-tested secrets to success, both on and off the field."All In" is an inspirational must-read for football fans everywhere and for anyone who has ever struggled to overcome their own 5-19 season of life.
The Sting: The Undercover Operation That Caught Daniel Morcombe’s Killer
Kate Kyriacou - 2015
An elaborately staged fake crime gang, run by a ‘Mr Big’, that lured Brett Cowan in with the promise of a hefty payout. It was the stuff of a TV crime series rather than an Australian police operation. The Sting reveals extraordinary new detail and a shocking insight into one of the country's most evil killers, and the operation that brought him down.Go behind the scenes in one of Australia’s most sensational undercover busts, including never-before-heard detail of the covert investigation, including how Cowan was slowly brainwashed into believing ‘Mr Big’.Read what Cowan’s family think of their black sheep.
Elvis: Still Taking Care of Business: Memories and Insights About Elvis Presley from His Friend and Bodyguard
Sonny West - 2007
This will become a treasured addition to the collections of Elvis fans everywhere.
Prison Time
Shaun Attwood - 2014
After being attacked by a 20-stone California biker in for stabbing a girlfriend, Shaun writes about the prisoners who befriend, protect and inspire him. They include T-Bone, a massive African American ex-Marine who risks his life saving vulnerable inmates from rape, and Two Tonys, an old-school Mafia murderer who left the corpses of his rivals from Tucson to Alaska. They teach Shaun how to turn incarceration to his advantage, and to learn from his mistakes.Resigned to living alongside violent, mentally-ill, and drug-addicted inmates, Shaun immerses himself in psychology and philosophy to try to make sense of his past behaviour, and begins applying what he learns as he adapts to prison life. Encouraged by Two Tonys to explore fiction as well, Shaun reads over a thousand books which, with support from brilliant psychotherapist Dr. O, speed along his personal development. As his ability to deflect daily threats improves, Shaun begins to look forward to his release with optimism and a new love waiting for him. Yet the words of Aristotle from one of Shaun’s books will prove prophetic: 'We cannot learn without pain'.
Outside Shot: Big Dreams, Hard Times, and One County's Quest for Basketball Greatness
Keith O'Brien - 2013
For years, the boys and their legendary coach gave fans in central Kentucky, deep in the heart of basketball country, just what they wanted: state titles, national rankings, and countless trips to Kentucky's one-of-a-kind state tournament, where winning and losing can change a young man's life.But in 2009, with the economy sputtering, anger rising, and Scott County mired in a two-year drought, fans had begun to lose faith in the boys. They weren't the heroes of Scott County anymore; they were "mini-athlete gods," haunted by dreams, burdened by expectations, and desperate to escape through the only means they knew: basketball.In Outside Shot, Keith O'Brien takes us on an epic journey, from the bluegrass hills and broken homes of rural America, to inner-city Lexington, to Kentucky's most hallowed hall: Rupp Arena, where high school tournament games are known to draw twenty-thousand people, and where, for the players and their fans, it feels like anything is possible.The narrative follows four of the team's top seniors and their coach as they struggle to redeem themselves in the face of impossible odds: once-loyal fans now turned against them, parents who demand athletic greatness, and scouts who weigh their every move. It delves deep inside the lives of the boys, their families, and their community---divided along lines of race, politics, religion, and sports. And it chronicles not only the high-stakes world of Kentucky basketball, but the battle for the soul of small-town America.A story of inspiration and poignancy, filled with moments of drama on and off the court, Outside Shot shows that if it's hard to win basketball games, it can be even harder to win at life itself.
There Are No Sad Dogs in Heaven: Finding Comfort After the Loss of a Pet
Sonya Fitzpatrick - 2013
For many they’re as close as children; for some they may be our only children. And while most of us can expect that our children will outlive us, sadly, our pets almost never do.Losing a pet can be as difficult as losing any other family member; we grieve, we miss them, and, mostly, we want closure, to know that our furry, feathered, or scaled friends are okay, wherever they are.For years, animal communicator Sonya Fitzpatrick has helped pet owners cope with the loss of their beloved companions. Many of them ask the same questions: Is my pet happy? Why did this happen? Is it okay to get another pet? Using her personal experiences as well as the stories of the families she’s worked with, Sonya sheds some light on the questions that every grieving pet owner has, and assures the reader that there are, in fact, no sad dogs (or cats or birds or turtles or horses or cows) in heaven.
Teaching English in a Foreign Land: A Humorous Travel Writing Biography of a TEFL Teacher's Adventure Teaching English as a Foreign Language
Barry O'Leary - 2012
After doing a TEFL course in London, he flies to South America alone. He has no job to go to but hopes that teaching English will fund his travels – ultimately, it opens up opportunities all over the world.During Barry's two-year TEFL adventure he has several nervy encounters with local louts in Ecuador and Brazil, collapses after a trip to Machu Picchu, gets stuck next to ecstasy raving loonies and a transvestite on a Greyhound Bus across America, struggles to settle Down Under, finds himself working for strict Catholic nuns in Bangkok, and meets some sex mad Babushkas on the Trans-Mongolian railway.This book is essential for anyone who wants to see how rewarding it can be to teach English in a foreign land.
From Shadow Party to Shadow Government: George Soros and the Effort to Radically Change America
John Perazzo - 2011
Since David Horowitz wrote “The Shadow Party” in 2007, there has been a major breakthrough in the progression of Soros’ plan to racially change American institutions – he has succeeded in subverting and taking over the Democratic Party itself. Though Soros has carefully hidden his goals under the cloak of his philanthropy, Horowitz and John Perazzo expose Soros’ radical agenda in this booklet and show how his philanthropies actually work to advance his leftwing causes. Understanding the Soros agenda is critical for understanding and defeating the Obama agenda, because they have, in effect, become one in the same.
From Such Small Things
Brian Harmon - 2011
But his enthusiasm quickly turns to dread when it becomes apparent that his phantom guest has also begun to notice Allan. This tale is from the short story collection, BURIED IN THE BASEMENT, by the author of The Temple of the Blind series. 9200 words
Buen Camino!
Natasha Murtagh - 2011
Peter and Natasha's journey starts in drizzle and wind as they scale Croagh Patrick, Ireland's Holy Mountain in Mayo, before setting off immediately afterwards for the Pyrenees in France. There, they start walking the Camino, the Way of St James, to Santiago de Compostela. It is a grueling trek over three mountain ranges; through fields and valleys, villages, towns and cities, to the lush countryside and forests of Galicia, and eventually to Finisterre, the pagan end of the earth. Along the way, they meet a motley collection of other pilgrims with whom they laugh, cry and above all have fun amid moments of high drama, exhilaration and sometimes exhaustion. They run with the bulls and parade in a fiesta; they pray with the faithful, and explore the Camino's rich Christian and pagan history; they stay in its sometimes Spartan pilgrim hostels and appreciate the richness of living simply. "A lovely book for those who have done the Camino, or like me, are thinking of doing it."--The Dubliner. "This is a travel book, certainly, but it is much much, more than that. It's about family and friendship and camaraderie, and it is, in the end, a wonderfully warm story about the bond between a loving adventurous father and his daughter ready to embrace the world."-The Irish Mail on Sunday.
Last Call: A Memoir
Nancy L. Carr - 2015
I wanted to be cool. I wanted to fit in. Whatever it took.” She was attractive, popular and determined to grow up in a hurry. How would she have known that at age thirteen, during her first teenage drinking party, her life would play out in such a way that it would rule her life decisions going forward? The handsome boys and pretty girls were guzzling a certain punch, and she wanted to be like them. Tentatively, she ladled the jungle juice from the punch bowl and had her first sip of alcohol. She wanted more. It couldn’t have come at a better time. This is what she’d been searching for –relief. Instant relief. Getting drunk becomes her rite of passage as she careens through junior and senior high school caving in to peer pressure for her need to feel accepted. Through secretarial school and early jobs, her twenties are a blur. Quicker than she can take a tequila shot in a Mexican café, change her lovers weekly, and party with the dregs of society, as well as the socialites and future executives – Nancy finds a lifestyle that seems to work for her. She continues on and drinks and uses cocaine through the snows of Aspen, the desert heat of Scottsdale, the California coast and her Pennsylvania homelands, only to find herself alone and desperate in her quest for love and her own identity. Milk, she decides, has a longer shelf life than her romantic interludes. Surfer Boy, Boston Boy, Blondie Boy. Her big question becomes, who is going to marry her? As she approaches her early 30’s, she thinks getting married will fix her. “I am sitting on my couch finishing up a second bottle of Two Buck Chuck, watching Sarah Jessica Parker on “Sex and the City,” crying and wondering why I’m still single. I understand why Sarah is single. She spends too much money on shoes, and no one wants to marry a shoe whore. She had the perfect man too. She was a fool to let Aidan get away. Ever since high school the perennial question from my parents and friends was always the same, “Are you going to marry him?” It never occurred to Nancy to blame her loneliness on her beverages of choice. She’d kept her career going. She wasn’t an alcoholic. In fact, she relished hearing confessions of real alcoholics so she could assure herself that they—and not she—had a problem. Hello, Black Kettle? This is Pot calling! Terribly alone after receiving her second DUI at age 37, Nancy experiences a moment of clarity. She’s been looking for answers everywhere but the place she least wants to examine: the mirror. What glares back at her is over twenty-four years of living life in the fast lane, zooming by all the red flags. “Sitting in the jail cell I thought about hitting bottom. I could stop digging now. My life couldn’t get any worse….How could years of my free-wheeling lifestyle as a partier, mainly a social drinker, bring me to this place?” Compelled by a judge, Nancy walks into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and begins the hellacious journey of rethinking her life to finally find what she’d been searching for – her true self. Now sober for over ten years, married and with a thriving career, Nancy wants to tell other young women what she wishes someone had told her.
Ten Minutes from Home: A Memoir
Beth Greenfield - 2010
In this searing, sparely written, and surprisingly wry memoir, Beth Greenfield shares what happens in 1982 when, as a twelve-year-old, she survives a drunk-driving accident that kills her younger brother Adam and best friend Kristin. As the benign concerns of adolescence are replaced by crushing guilt and grief, Beth searches for hope and support in some likely and not-so-likely places (General Hospital, a kindly rabbi, the bottom of a keg), eventually discovering that while life is fragile, love doesn’t have to be. Ten Minutes from Home exquisitely captures both the heartache of lost innocence and the solace of strength and survival.
Four Months to a Four-hour Marathon
Dave Kuehls - 1998
Entering is one thing.
Fat Envelope Frenzy: One Year, Five Promising Students, and the Pursuit of the Ivy League Prize
Joie Jager-hyman - 2008
Jager-Hyman also offers a startlingly frank appraisal of the college admission process and the important roles race and class continue to play in a student's efforts to attend the best school possible.