Look at My Happy Rainbow: My Journey as a Male Kindergarten Teacher


Matthew Halpern - 2014
    Halpern is funny. He is handsome. He likes to laugh. I love Mr. Halpern. How can I top that? Who doesn't want to be funny, handsome, laugh all the time, and be loved by their students? What they don't know is I left a dreary cubicle job for the exciting, never boring life of a kindergarten teacher eight years ago and never looked back. I have seen and heard some crazy, hilarious, and even touching moments. Look at My Happy Rainbow is my account of the first few years working in a kindergarten classroom experiencing the day to day trials and tribulations and trying to see the world a little more through the eyes of a five-year-old. From the first time a child reached up to take my hand to learning the true value of zipping a coat, being a 'rooster in a world of hens' my unique perspective on teaching and children will (hopefully) warm your heart, make you laugh, and might even help you remember what it felt like to be in kindergarten. Warning: I have a very short attention span (this is why I'm so well suited to teach kindergarten). Some of the chapters are short. One is less than one page. I think this makes the book 'charming', but please know - this is not War and Peace.

The Trouble With Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith


Irshad Manji - 2003
    Islam is on very thin ice with me.... Through our screaming self-pity and our conspicuous silences, we Muslims are conspiring against ourselves. We're in crisis and we're dragging the rest of the world with us. If ever there was a moment for an Islamic reformation, it's now. For the love of God, what are we doing about it?"In this open letter, Irshad Manji unearths the troubling cornerstones of mainstream Islam today: tribal insularity, deep-seated anti-Semitism, and an uncritical acceptance of the Koran as the final, and therefore superior, manifesto of God's will. But her message is ultimately positive. She offers a practical vision of how Islam can undergo a reformation that empowers women, promotes respect for religious minorities, and fosters a competition of ideas. Her vision revives "ijtihad," Islam's lost tradition of independent thinking. In that spirit, Irshad has a refreshing challenge for both Muslims and non-Muslims: Don't silence yourselves. Ask questions---out loud. The Trouble with Islam Today is a clarion call for a fatwa-free future.

I Hope This Finds You Well


Kate Baer - 2021
    . . It’s honest to god the basic human playbook”These are some of the thousands of messages that Kate Baer has received online. Like countless other writers—particularly women—with profiles on the internet, as Kate’s online presence grew, so did the darker messages crowding her inbox. These missives from strangers have ranged from “advice” and opinions to outright harassment. At first, these messages resulted in an immediate delete and block. Until, on a whim, Kate decided to transform the cruelty into art, using it to create fresh and intriguing poems. These pieces, along with ones made from notes of gratitude and love, as well as from the words of public figures, have become some of her most beloved work.  I Hope This Finds You Well is drawn from those works: a book of poetry birthed in the darkness of the internet that offers light and hope. By cleverly building on the harsh negativity and hate women often receive—and combining it with heartwarming messages of support, gratitude, and connection, Kate Baer offers us a lesson in empowerment, showing how we too can turn bitterness into beauty.

There Are Girls like Lions


Cole Swensen - 2019
    Rousing and empowering, There Are Girls like Lions is a celebration of womanhood in all its dimensions, including love, beauty, friendship, motherhood, work, aging, and much more. Packaged in an attractive case with foil stamping and featuring striking illustrations in metallic ink throughout, this powerful collection will resonate as a gift for any modern woman.

Midnight in Cairo: The Divas of Egypt's Roaring '20s


Raphael Cormack - 2021
    During the 1920s and ’30s, a vibrant music, theater, film, and cabaret scene flourished, defining what it meant to be a “modern” Egyptian. Women came to dominate the Egyptian entertainment industry—as stars of the stage and screen but also as impresarias, entrepreneurs, owners, and promoters of a new and strikingly modern entertainment industry.Raphael Cormack unveils the rich histories of independent, enterprising women like vaudeville star Rose al-Youssef (who launched one of Cairo’s most important newspapers); nightclub singer Mounira al-Mahdiyya (the first woman to lead an Egyptian theater company) and her great rival, Oum Kalthoum (still venerated for her soulful lyrics); and other fabulous female stars of the interwar period, a time marked by excess and unheard-of freedom of expression. Buffeted by crosswinds of colonialism and nationalism, conservatism and liberalism, “religious” and “secular” values, patriarchy and feminism, this new generation of celebrities offered a new vision for women in Egypt and throughout the Middle East.

Loose Balls: Easy Money, Hard Fouls, Cheap Laughs, & True Love in the NBA


Jayson Williams - 2000
    From revelations about the meanest, softest, and smelliest players in the league, to Williams’s early days as a “young man with a lot of money and not a lot of sense,” to his strong and powerful views on race, privilege, and giving back, Loose Balls is a basketball book unlike any other.No inspirational pieties or chest-thumping boasting here—instead, Jayson Williams gives us the real insider tales of refs, groupies, coaches, entourages, and all the superstars, bench warmers, journeymen, clowns, and other performers in the rarefied circus that is professional basketball.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Final Approach - Northwest Airlines Flight 650, Tragedy and Triumph


Lyle Prouse - 2011
    He was fired by his airline, stripped of his FAA licenses, tried, convicted, and sent to Federal prison. This was a first. It had never occurred before. Lyle Prouse came from a WWII housing project in Kansas and an alcoholic family where both parents died as a result of alcoholism. He rose through the ranks of the United States Marine Corps from private to captain, from an infantryman to a fighter pilot. He made his way to the pinnacle of commercial aviation, airline captain...then lost it all. Today he is a recovering alcoholic with nearly twenty-two years sobriety. This story describes his rise from the ashes of complete destruction from which he was never to fly again. It is full of miracles which defy all manner of odds. In a long and arduous journey, he eventually regained his FAA licenses. He never fought his termination; he considered it fair and appropriate. Miraculously, after nearly four years, the President/CEO of his airline personally reinstated him to full flight status in spite of all the adverse publicity and embarrassment. In effect, the President/CEO gambled his own career by taking such a risk on a convicted felon and publicly acknowledged alcoholic pilot. In another stunning event, the judge who tried, sentenced, and sent him to prison watched his journey and reappeared eight years after the trial. He became the driving force behind a Presidential pardon although he'd never supported a petition for pardon in all his years on the bench. Lyle retired honorably as a 747 captain for the airline he'd so horribly embarrassed and disgraced. He lives with his wife of nearly forty-nine years and has five grandchildren. He continues to work with all the major airlines in their alcohol programs. He is also active in his Native American community, and he provides hope to those struggling with the disease of alcoholism, no matter who they are or where they are.

Clara Brown: The Rags to Riches Story of a Freed Slave


Julie McDonald - 2016
    After being freed at the age of 57, she begins a tireless search for her only remaining family member, her daughter Eliza Jane. What Clara accomplishes in her 28 years of freedom will simply astound you! I first wrote about Clara Brown in my book Unbreakable Dolls, Too. This single story eBook is the expanded version, with much more information and 9 photos.

Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women


Nora Ephron - 1975
    In this distinctive, engaging, and simply hilarious view of a period of great upheaval in America, Ephron turns her keen eye and wonderful sense of humor to the media, politics, beauty products, and women's bodies. In the famous "A Few Words About Breasts," for example, she tells us: "If I had had them, I would have been a completely different person. I honestly believe that." Ephron brings her sharp pen to bear on the notable women of the time, and to a series of events ranging from Watergate to the Pillsbury Bake-Off. When it first appeared in 1975, Crazy Salad helped to illuminate a new American era—and helped us to laugh at our times and ourselves. This new edition will delight a fresh generation of readers.Contents:A few words about breasts.--Fantasies.--On never having been a prom queen.--The girls in the office.--Reunion.--Miami.--Vaginal politics.--Bernice Gera, first lady umpire.--Deep throat.--On consciousness-raising.--Dealing with the, uh, problem.--The hurled ashtray.--Truth and consequences.--Baking off.--Crazy ladies: I.--The pig.--Dorothy Parker.--A star is born.--Women in Israel: The myth of liberation.--The littlest Nixon.--Divorce, Maryland style.--Rose Mary Woods: the lady or the tiger?--No, but I read the book.--Crazy ladies: II.--Conundrum.Portions of this book have appeared in Esquire magazine, New York magazine, and Rolling Stone.

The Atlas of Beauty: Women of the World in 500 Portraits


Mihaela Noroc - 2017
    The Atlas of Beauty is a collection of her photographs that celebrates women from fifty countries across the globe and shows that beauty is everywhere, regardless of money, race or social status, and comes in many different sizes and colours. Mihaela's portraits feature women in their native environments, from the Amazon rain forest to markets in India, London city streets and parks in Harlem, creating a mirror of our varied cultures and proving that beauty has no rules.'Stunning . . . aims to challenge the ideals of beauty dictated by the women's fashion magazine industry' Independent'A startling and revealing project' Daily Mail'Scrolling through "The Atlas of Beauty", beauty becomes not a universal standard, but a complicated tapestry' Huffington Post

Astrology Superstition Blind Faith or a Door to the Essential?


Osho - 2013
    From ancient India to the lost civilization of Sumeria, from Pythagoras to Paracelsus to Piccardi, we discover that for thousands of years there has been a thread of awareness of how all things in the universe are interconnected – an awareness that modern physics is still struggling to define in scientific terms today.As Osho says: The universe is a living body, an organic unity. In it, nothing is isolated, all is connected. Whatever is far away is connected to that which is near; nothing is separate. So no one should remain in the fallacy that he is an island: isolated, separate, aloof. Everything is connected to the whole, and everything is all the time affecting others and being affected by others.Astrology aficionados and skeptics alike will find something in this small volume to provoke a new way of looking at what really “makes the world go round.”

Sensational: The Hidden History of America's “Girl Stunt Reporters”


Kim Todd - 2021
    In various disguises, they stole into sewing factories to report on child labor, fainted in the streets to test public hospital treatment, posed as lobbyists to reveal corrupt politicians. Inventive writers whose in-depth narratives made headlines for weeks at a stretch, these "girl stunt reporters" changed laws, helped launch a labor movement, championed women’s rights, and redefined journalism for the modern age.The 1880s and 1890s witnessed a revolution in journalism as publisher titans like Hearst and Pulitzer used weapons of innovation and scandal to battle it out for market share. As they sought new ways to draw readers in, they found their answer in young women flooding into cities to seek their fortunes. When Nellie Bly went undercover into Blackwell’s Insane Asylum for Women and emerged with a scathing indictment of what she found there, the resulting sensation created opportunity for a whole new wave of writers. In a time of few jobs and few rights for women, here was a path to lives of excitement and meaning.After only a decade of headlines and fame, though, these trailblazers faced a vicious public backlash. Accused of practicing "yellow journalism," their popularity waned until "stunt reporter" became a badge of shame. But their influence on the field of journalism would arc across a century, from the Progressive Era "muckraking" of the 1900s to the personal "New Journalism" of the 1960s and ’70s, to the "immersion journalism" and "creative nonfiction" of today. Bold and unconventional, these writers changed how people would tell stories forever.

Stephen Hawking: Extraordinary Life Lessons That Will Change Your Life Forever


Jamie Cooper - 2015
    Whatever your circumstances, you can create the life you desire by following simple, counterintuitive steps; not the steps society wants you to follow. Unfortunately, you cannot even trust yourself when it comes to creating the life that you desire, because you’re programmed by your past, an accumulation of hundreds of thousands of years, a mind still adapted for a hunter-gatherer time period. What does this mean? It means every day you’re battling your emotions, logic versus emotion. Logically, you want to do one thing, but emotionally, you are drawn to something else. First, if this sounds familiar, then great, because it means you are human. But, if you’re going to win the game of life, you cannot sit around and wait for things to happen, because you’ll be living a life of supreme comfort and sameness; ultimately, a great sin. You are destined for great things, capable of forging dreams and living your aspirations. Maybe you’ve forgotten about this truth: that you are capable, worthy, and ready. Maybe you’ve been beaten into the ground by life, a teacher who doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor, weak or strong, ready or not, because life will continue forward regardless, waiting for no one. Fortunately, there’re things you can do to set yourself apart from the millions that will ultimately suffer and fail. One such thing, perhaps the most powerful of all, is by studying the great, people who have succeeded and who have gone beyond what is humanly thought possible. When it comes to studying someone great, there’s one name that stands tall, Stephen Hawking, a person who has persevered and flourished. Not only has he conquered great adversity, but he has inspired millions around the world with his brilliant mind. There is a reason why people compare him with the once living Albert Einstein, the genius. What follows are Stephen Hawking’s greatest life lessons, gems of wisdom that you can easily apply to your own life, which will help you live a more abundant, stronger life. If you’re in need of inspiration, a boost of confidence, or just a friendly reminder of the wonders in life, you’ve come to the right place. See for yourself why millions study his work and regard him as a genius. Scroll up and grab your copy today.*** Limited time offer ***

Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War


Virginia Nicholson - 2006
    Tracing their fates, Nicholson shows how the single woman of the inter-war years had to depend on herself and, in doing so, helped change society.

Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence


Anita Hill - 2021
    It's at times downright virtuosic in the threads it weaves together."--NPR From the woman who gave the landmark testimony against Clarence Thomas as a sexual menace, a new manifesto about the origins and course of gender violence in our society; a combination of memoir, personal accounts, law, and social analysis, and a powerful call to arms from one of our most prominent and poised survivors.In 1991, Anita Hill began something that's still unfinished work. The issues of gender violence, touching on sex, race, age, and power, are as urgent today as they were when she first testified. Believing is a story of America's three decades long reckoning with gender violence, one that offers insights into its roots, and paths to creating dialogue and substantive change. It is a call to action that offers guidance based on what this brave, committed fighter has learned from a lifetime of advocacy and her search for solutions to a problem that is still tearing America apart.We once thought gender-based violence--from casual harassment to rape and murder--was an individual problem that affected a few; we now know it's cultural and endemic, and happens to our acquaintances, colleagues, friends and family members, and it can be physical, emotional and verbal. Women of color experience sexual harassment at higher rates than White women. Street harassment is ubiquitous and can escalate to violence. Transgender and nonbinary people are particularly vulnerable.Anita Hill draws on her years as a teacher, legal scholar, and advocate, and on the experiences of the thousands of individuals who have told her their stories, to trace the pipeline of behavior that follows individuals from place to place: from home to school to work and back home. In measured, clear, blunt terms, she demonstrates the impact it has on every aspect of our lives, including our physical and mental wellbeing, housing stability, political participation, economy and community safety, and how our descriptive language undermines progress toward solutions. And she is uncompromising in her demands that our laws and our leaders must address the issue concretely and immediately.