Alcoholics Anonymous, also known as the Big Book in recovery circles, sets forth cornerstone concepts of recovery from alcoholism and tells the stories of men and women who have overcome the disease. The fourth edition includes twenty-four new stories that provide contemporary sharing for newcomers seeking recovery from alcoholism in A.A. during the early years of the 21st century. Sixteen stories are retained from the third edition, including the "Pioneers of A.A." section, which helps the reader remain linked to A.A.'s historic roots, and shows how early members applied this simple but profound program that helps alcoholics get sober today.

Approximately 21 million copies of the first three editions of Alcoholics Anonymous have been distributed. It is expected that the new fourth edition will play its part in passing on A.A.'s basic message of recovery. This fourth edition has been approved by the General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous, in the hope that many more may be led toward recovery by reading its explanation of the A.A. program and its varied examples of personal experiences which demonstrate that the A.A. program works.

The Passion of Artemisia is a captivating novel that brings to life one of the few female post-Renaissance painters to achieve fame during her own era, despite facing immense struggles. Artemisia Gentileschi led a remarkably "modern" life, filled with both extraordinary highs and challenging lows.

From her public humiliation in a rape trial at the age of eighteen to her father's betrayal, Artemisia's life was a testament to her resilience and talent. Her marriage of convenience, motherhood, and growing fame as an artist are depicted with rich details, set against the glorious backdrops of Rome, Florence, Genoa, and Naples.

Inhabited by historical characters such as Galileo and Cosimo de' Medici II, this novel paints a vivid picture of life as a seventeenth-century painter. Susan Vreeland crafts an inspiring story about one woman's lifelong struggle to reconcile career and family, passion and genius.

Join Artemisia on her journey as she navigates the world of art and society, living as a bold and brilliant woman who paid a high price for her independence.

One Writer's Beginnings is a deeply personal and inspiring memoir by the acclaimed author Eudora Welty. This work offers a rare glimpse into the formative years of Welty's life, detailing the experiences and influences that shaped her as a writer.

Originally delivered as a series of lectures at Harvard University, this book invites readers to journey through Welty's childhood in Mississippi, exploring the vivid landscapes and rich cultural tapestry that fueled her imagination. Her reflections are not just a recounting of memories, but a testament to the power of storytelling and the importance of nurturing one's creative spirit.

Welty's eloquent prose and heartfelt anecdotes provide a window into the soul of a writer dedicated to her craft. Aspiring authors and literary enthusiasts alike will find inspiration in her words, as she shares the joys and challenges of her path to becoming one of America's most cherished storytellers.

Twenty-five years ago, a disillusioned young man set out on a walk across America. This is the book he wrote about that journey - a classic account of the reawakening of his faith in himself and his country.

"I started out searching for myself and my country," Peter Jenkins writes, "and found both." In this timeless classic, Jenkins describes how disillusionment with society in the 1970s drove him out onto the road on a walk across America.

His experiences remain as sharp and telling today as they were twenty-five years ago - from the timeless secrets of life, learned from a mountain-dwelling hermit, to the stir he caused by staying with a black family in North Carolina, to his hours of intense labor in Southern mills.

Many, many miles later, he learned lessons about his country and himself that resonate to this day - and will inspire a new generation to get out, hit the road and explore.

Gloria Whelan's National Book Award-winning novel chronicles the breathtaking story of a remarkable young woman who dares to defy fate. Like many girls her age in India, thirteen-year-old Koly faces her arranged marriage with hope and courage. But Koly's story takes a terrible turn when, in the wake of the ceremony, she discovers she's been horribly misled; her life has been sold for a dowry.

In prose both graceful and unflinching, this powerful novel relays the story of a rare young woman, who even when cast out into a brutal current of time-worn tradition, sets out to forge her own remarkable future. Inspired by a newspaper article about real teenage widows in India today, this universally acclaimed, best-selling novel, characterized by spare, lyrical language and remarkable detail, transports readers into the heart of a gripping tale of hope.

Koly's journey is a testament to the power of courage and hope, showing that fate can indeed be taken into one's own hands.

The beautiful practicality of her teaching has made Pema Chödrön one of the most beloved of contemporary American spiritual authors among Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike. This book is a treasury of wisdom for going on living when we are overcome by pain and difficulties.

Chödrön discusses:

• Using painful emotions to cultivate wisdom, compassion, and courage
• Communicating so as to encourage others to open up rather than shut down
• Practices for reversing habitual patterns
• Methods for working with chaotic situations
• Ways for creating effective social action

This acclaimed autobiography presents a fascinating portrait of one of the great spiritual figures of our time. With engaging candor, eloquence, and wit, Paramahansa Yogananda narrates the inspiring chronicle of his life: the experiences of his remarkable childhood, encounters with many saints and sages during his youthful search throughout India for an illumined teacher, ten years of training in the hermitage of a revered yoga master, and the thirty years that he lived and taught in America.

Also recorded here are his meetings with Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Luther Burbank, the Catholic stigmatist Therese Neumann, and other celebrated spiritual personalities of East and West. Autobiography of a Yogi is at once a beautifully written account of an exceptional life and a profound introduction to the ancient science of Yoga and its time-honored tradition of meditation. The author clearly explains the subtle but definite laws behind both the ordinary events of everyday life and the extraordinary events commonly termed miracles. His absorbing life story thus becomes the background for a penetrating and unforgettable look at the ultimate mysteries of human existence.

Considered a modern spiritual classic, the book has been translated into more than twenty languages and is widely used as a text and reference work in colleges and universities. A perennial bestseller since it was first published sixty years ago, Autobiography of a Yogi has found its way into the hearts of millions of readers around the world.

Have you ever wanted to rewrite your past?

Three best friends, all with the same birthday, are about to turn forty. Celebrating at a summerhouse in Maine, Leslie Headrick, Madison Appleby, and Ellie Abbott are taking stock of their lives and loves, their wishes and choices. But none of them expect the gift that awaits them at the summerhouse: the chance for each of them to turn their “what-might-have-beens” into reality…

Leslie, a suburban wife and mother, follows the career of a boy who pursued her in college and wonders: what if she had chosen differently? Madison dropped a modeling career to help her high school boyfriend recover from an accident, even though he’d jilted her. But what if she had said “no” when her old boyfriend had called? Ellie became a famous novelist, but a bitter divorce wiped out her earnings—and shattered her belief in herself. Why had the “justice” system failed her? And could she prevent its happening the second time around?

Now, a mysterious “Madame Zoya,” offers each of them a chance to relive any three weeks from the past. Will the road not taken prove a better path? Each woman will have to decide for herself as she follows the dream that got away…and each must choose the life that will truly satisfy the heart’s deepest longings.

Galileo's Daughter dramatically recolors the personality and accomplishment of a mythic figure whose seventeenth-century clash with Catholic doctrine continues to define the schism between science and religion.

Inspired by a long fascination with Galileo, and by the remarkable surviving letters of Galileo's daughter, a cloistered nun, Dava Sobel has written a biography unlike any other of the man Albert Einstein called "the father of modern physics--indeed of modern science altogether."

Galileo's Daughter also presents a stunning portrait of a person hitherto lost to history, described by her father as "a woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and most tenderly attached to me."

The son of a musician, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) tried at first to enter a monastery before engaging the skills that made him the foremost scientist of his day. Though he never left Italy, his inventions and discoveries were heralded around the world. Most sensationally, his telescopes allowed him to reveal a new reality in the heavens and to reinforce the astounding argument that the Earth moves around the Sun. For this belief, he was brought before the Holy Office of the Inquisition, accused of heresy, and forced to spend his last years under house arrest.

Of Galileo's three illegitimate children, the eldest best mirrored his own brilliance, industry, and sensibility, and by virtue of these qualities became his confidante. Born Virginia in 1600, she was thirteen when Galileo placed her in a convent near him in Florence, where she took the most appropriate name of Suor Maria Celeste. Her loving support, which Galileo repaid in kind, proved to be her father's greatest source of strength throughout his most productive and tumultuous years. Her presence, through letters which Sobel has translated from their original Italian and masterfully woven into the narrative, graces her father's life now as it did then.

Galileo's Daughter dramatically recolors the personality and accomplishment of a mythic figure whose seventeenth-century clash with Catholic doctrine continues to define the schism between science and religion. Moving between Galileo's grand public life and Maria Celeste's sequestered world, Sobel illuminates the Florence of the Medicis and the papal court in Rome during the pivotal era when humanity's perception of its place in the cosmos was being overturned. In that same time, while the bubonic plague wreaked its terrible devastation and the Thirty Years' War tipped fortunes across Europe, one man sought to reconcile the Heaven he revered as a good Catholic with the heavens he revealed through his telescope.

With all the human drama and scientific adventure that distinguished Longitude, Galileo's Daughter is an unforgettable story.

It is such an all-American story. A lanky kid from Plano, Texas, is raised by a feisty, single parent who sacrifices for her son, who becomes one of our country's greatest athletes. Given that background, it is understandable why Armstrong was able to channel his boundless energy toward athletic endeavors.

By his senior year in high school, he was already a professional triathlete and was training with the U.S. Olympic cycling developmental team. In 1993, Armstrong secured a position in the ranks of world-class cyclists by winning the World Championship and a Tour de France stage, but in 1996, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Armstrong entered an unknown battlefield and challenged it as if climbing through the Alps: aggressive yet tactical. He beat the cancer and proceeded to stun all the pundits by winning the 1999 Tour de France.

In this memoir, Armstrong covers his early years swiftly with a blunt matter-of-factness, but the main focus is on his battle with cancer. Readers will respond to the inspirational recovery story, and they will appreciate the behind-the-scenes cycling information. After he won the Tour, his mother was quoted as saying that her son's whole life has been a fight against the odds; we see here that she was not exaggerating.

A Struggle of the Spirit and a Search for the Truth

Written with the same masterful prose and clarity of vision that made The Alchemist an international phenomenon, The Fifth Mountain is Paulo Coelho's inspiring story of the Biblical prophet Elijah. In the ninth century B.C., the Phoenician princess Jezebel orders the execution of all the prophets who refuse to seek safety in the land of Zarephath, where he unexpectedly finds true love with a young widow. But this newfound rapture is to be cut short, and Elijah sees all of his hopes and dreams irrevocably erased as he is swept into a whirlwind of events that threatens his very existence. In what is truly a literary milestone, Coelho gives a quietly moving account of a man touched by the hand of God who must triumph over his frustrations in a soul-shattering trail of faith.

Jonathan Kozol's books have become touchstones of the American conscience. In his most personal and optimistic book to date, Jonathan returns to the South Bronx to spend another four years with the children who have come to be his friends at P.S. 30 and St. Ann's.

A fascinating narrative of daily urban life seen through the eyes of children, Ordinary Resurrections gives a human face to Northern segregation and provides a stirring testimony to the courage and resilience of the young. Sometimes playful, sometimes jubilantly funny, and sometimes profoundly sad, these are sensitive children—complex and morally insightful. Their ethical vitality denounces and subverts the racially charged labels that the world of grown-up expertise too frequently assigns to them.

Yet another classic of unblinking social observation from one of the finest writers ever to work in the genre, this book is a piercing discernment of right and wrong, of hope and despair—from our nation's corridors of power to its poorest city streets.

In this national bestseller, the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Gordon B. Hinckley, has created a classic look at the values that can change our world--and how to stand up for them. Drawing on anecdotes from his much-admired life of faith and service, as well as examples from American culture today, he examines ten virtues that have always illuminated the path to a better world: love, honesty, morality, civility, learning, forgiveness and mercy, thrift and industry, gratitude, optimism, and faith. He then shows how the two guardians of virtue--marriage and the family--can keep us on that path, even in difficult times.

Standing for Something is an inspiring blueprint for what we all can do--as individuals, as a nation, and as a world community--to rediscover the values and virtues that have historically made us strong and that will lead us to a brighter future.

Despite—or because of—her irreverence, faith is a natural subject for Anne Lamott. Since Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird, her fans have been waiting for her to write the book that explained how she came to the big-hearted, grateful, generous faith that she so often alluded to in her two earlier nonfiction books.

The people in Anne Lamott's real life are like beloved characters in a favorite series for her readers: Her friend Pammy; her son, Sam; and the many funny and wise folks who attend her church are all familiar. And Traveling Mercies is a welcome return to those lives, as well as an introduction to new companions Lamott treats with the same candor, insight, and tenderness.

Lamott's faith isn't about easy answers, which is part of what endears her to believers as well as nonbelievers. Against all odds, she came to believe in God, and then, even more miraculously, in herself. As she puts it, "My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers."

At once tough, personal, affectionate, wise, and very funny, Traveling Mercies tells in exuberant detail how Anne Lamott learned to shine the light of faith on the darkest part of ordinary life, exposing surprising pockets of meaning and hope.

Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, the son of a little-educated boat-owner in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, had an unparalleled career as a defence scientist, culminating in the highest civilian award of India, the Bharat Ratna. As chief of the country's defence research and development programme, Kalam demonstrated the great potential for dynamism and innovation that existed in seemingly moribund research establishments.

This is the story of Kalam's rise from obscurity and his personal and professional struggles, as well as the story of Agni, Prithvi, Akash, Trishul and Nag-missiles that have become household names in India and that have raised the nation to the level of a missile power of international reckoning. This is also the saga of independent India's struggle for technological self-sufficiency and defensive autonomy—a story as much about politics, domestic and international, as it is about science.

The Freedom Writers Diary is a powerful and unforgettable example of how hard work, courage, and the spirit of determination can change lives. This book presents the inspiring story of an idealistic young English teacher, Erin Gruwell, and her remarkable students at Wilson High School in Long Beach, California.

Confronted with a classroom of "unteachable, at-risk" students, Erin Gruwell discovered a note containing an ugly racial caricature. She used this moment to teach her students about the Holocaust, only to be met with uncomprehending looks. Determined to make a difference, she revamped her curriculum, using treasured books like Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo to combat intolerance and misunderstanding.

Through their journey, the students began to see parallels in these books to their own lives, recording their thoughts and feelings in diaries. They named themselves the "Freedom Writers," paying homage to the civil rights activists "The Freedom Riders." Their efforts led to significant recognition and educational success, with all 150 Freedom Writers graduating from high school and attending college.

Featuring entries from the students’ diaries and narrative text by Erin Gruwell, this book remains a vital read for anyone who believes in second chances and the transformative power of education.

The Seven Storey Mountain is one of the most famous books ever written about a man's search for faith and peace. It tells of the growing restlessness of a brilliant and passionate young man, who at the age of twenty-six, takes vows in one of the most demanding Catholic orders—the Trappist monks.

At the Abbey of Gethsemani, "the four walls of my new freedom," Thomas Merton struggles to withdraw from the world, but only after he has fully immersed himself in it. At the abbey, he wrote this extraordinary testament, a unique spiritual autobiography that has been recognized as one of the most influential religious works of our time.

Translated into more than twenty languages, it has touched millions of lives.

Hiroshima-born Sadako is lively and athletic—the star of her school's running team. And then the dizzy spells start. Soon, gravely ill with leukemia, the "atom bomb disease," Sadako faces her future with spirit and bravery.

Recalling a Japanese legend, Sadako sets to work folding paper cranes. For the legend holds that if a sick person folds one thousand cranes, the gods will grant her wish and make her healthy again.

Based on a true story, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes celebrates the extraordinary courage that made one young woman a heroine in Japan.

On a hilltop north of Seattle, overlooking the glorious vista of Puget Sound and the white-capped Olympics, stands Rosary Heights, the motherhouse of the Sisters of Saint Dominic of the Holy Cross. The story begins here, with a catastrophic storm that shifts the ground beneath the motherhouse and threatens to send it crashing into the waters below. In a single act of nature, a moment of truth, the order is forced to rethink its place in the world and its purpose.

With Rosary Heights as the backdrop, Catherine Whitney takes a personal journey inside the order that ran the school she attended as a child, the order that, for a short time, she contemplated entering herself. Her quest is to come to terms with what it means to be called to the religious life. What is the secret these women hold that makes them--no matter how diverse--perform common rituals, celebrate the same Mass, and serve the same God?

In The Calling, we meet several valiant women who struggle with the practicalities of the world around them as well as the complicating issues of the life of a nun. Each woman's story is compelling. Together, they form a dramatic human chronicle that is fascinating and revealing--a chronicle of a community that has existed for centuries but is still evolving and whose anxieties and joys are utterly relevant to all of us, regardless of our beliefs.

Wisdom to Create a Life of Passion, Purpose, and Peace. This inspiring tale provides a step-by-step approach to living with greater courage, balance, abundance, and joy.

A wonderfully crafted fable, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari tells the extraordinary story of Julian Mantle, a lawyer forced to confront the spiritual crisis of his out-of-balance life. On a life-changing odyssey to an ancient culture, he discovers powerful, wise, and practical lessons that teach us to:

• Develop Joyful Thoughts
• Follow Our Life's Mission and Calling
• Cultivate Self-Discipline and Act Courageously
• Value Time as Our Most Important Commodity
• Nourish Our Relationships
• Live Fully, One Day at a Time

Why would a talented young woman enter into a torrid affair with hunger, drugs, sex, and death? Through five lengthy hospital stays, endless therapy, and the loss of family, friends, jobs, and all sense of what it means to be "normal," Marya Hornbacher lovingly embraced her anorexia and bulimia—until a particularly horrifying bout with the disease in college put the romance of wasting away to rest forever. A vivid, honest, and emotionally wrenching memoir, Wasted is the story of one woman's travels to reality's darker side—and her decision to find her way back on her own terms.

Who Moved My Cheese? is a timeless business classic that uses a simple parable to reveal profound truths about dealing with change so that you can enjoy less stress and more success in your work and in your life. It would be all so easy if you had a map to the Maze. If the same old routines worked. If they'd just stop moving "The Cheese." But things keep changing...

Most people are fearful of change, both personal and professional, because they don't have any control over how or when it happens to them. Since change happens either to the individual or by the individual, Dr. Spencer Johnson, the coauthor of the multimillion bestseller The One Minute Manager, uses a deceptively simple story to show that when it comes to living in a rapidly changing world, what matters most is your attitude.

Exploring a simple way to take the fear and anxiety out of managing the future, Who Moved My Cheese? can help you discover how to anticipate, acknowledge, and accept change in order to have a positive impact on your job, your relationships, and every aspect of your life.

‘Locked-in syndrome: paralysed from head to toe, the patient, his mind intact, is imprisoned inside his own body, unable to speak or move. In my case, blinking my left eyelid is my only means of communication.’

In December 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of French ‘Elle’ and the father of two young children, suffered a massive stroke and found himself paralysed and speechless, but entirely conscious, trapped by what doctors call ‘locked-in syndrome’. Using his only functioning muscle – his left eyelid – he began dictating this remarkable story, painstakingly spelling it out letter by letter.

His book offers a haunting, harrowing look inside the cruel prison of locked-in syndrome, but it is also a triumph of the human spirit.

Death Be Not Proud chronicles Johnny Gunther's gallant struggle against the malignant brain tumor that claimed his life at the age of seventeen. This poignant memoir opens with a vivid portrait of Johnny by his father, highlighting a young man of extraordinary intellectual promise. Johnny excelled in physics, math, and chess, yet remained an active, good-hearted, and fun-loving teenager.

The heart of this memoir is the description of the agonizing months during which Johnny's parents, Gunther and his former wife Frances, tried everything in their power to halt the spread of Johnny's cancer and to make him as happy and comfortable as possible. Despite the challenges, Johnny strove to complete his high school studies, and the scene of his graduation ceremony from Deerfield Academy is one of the most powerful and heartbreaking moments in the book.

Throughout his illness, Johnny maintained his courage, wit, and quiet friendliness, leaving a lasting impact on those around him. He passed away on June 30, 1947, less than a month after his graduation.

'Tuesdays with Morrie' is a poignant memoir by Mitch Albom that recounts the time spent with his former sociology professor, Morrie Schwartz, during the final stages of Schwartz's battle with ALS. This book captures the essence of their weekly meetings, every Tuesday, where Morrie imparted wisdom on various aspects of life.

Albom presents Morrie's insights on the importance of love, the value of forgiveness, and the significance of forging one's own culture against the societal currents. These lessons are presented as a final 'class' from Morrie, offering guidance on how to live a meaningful life.

The author delves into the profound impact of these conversations on his life, as Morrie's teachings helped him understand the virtues of aging and the necessity to embrace vulnerability. Mitch Albom shares these invaluable lessons with readers, allowing them to benefit from Morrie's wisdom and the transformative power of their Tuesdays together.

California’s gold country, 1850. A time when men sold their souls for a bag of gold and women sold their bodies for a place to sleep. Angel expects nothing from men but betrayal. Sold into prostitution as a child, she survives by keeping her hatred alive. And what she hates most are the men who use her, leaving her empty and dead inside.

Then she meets Michael Hosea, a man who seeks his Father’s heart in everything. Michael obeys God’s call to marry Angel and to love her unconditionally. Slowly, day by day, he defies Angel’s every bitter expectation, until despite her resistance, her frozen heart begins to thaw. But with her unexpected softening comes overwhelming feelings of unworthiness and fear. And so Angel runs. Back to the darkness, away from her husband’s pursuing love, terrified of the truth she no longer can deny: her final healing must come from the One who loves her even more than Michael does . . . the One who will never let her go.

A powerful retelling of the story of Gomer and Hosea, Redeeming Love is a life-changing story of God’s unconditional, redemptive, all-consuming love.

"Sometimes it all comes over me," young Abbie said to her fiancé, "that I can do big things. It's ahead of me...kind of like a light in the woods that shines and stays far away." And when I read verse or hear music...or...sing...it beckons me on, and my throat hurts with wanting to do something great."

Abbie Deal did do something great, even if it wasn't what she had dreamed of. Years later, when her children, raised in a rude sod hut, were prosperous men and women of a thriving state, she could say proudly, "I've seen everything...and I've hardly been away from this yard." I've seen the feeble beginnings of a raw state and the civilization that developed there, and I've been part of the beginning and part of the growth.

But it's funny," she added, "I was always too busy filling up the youngsters and getting patches on the overalls to notice that I was part of the epic."

A strong and vigorous picture of pioneer life. The magnificent story of a young girl who went West as a bride—and helped to build a nation.

The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother touches readers of all colors as a vivid portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race and identity, and a lyrical valentine to a mother from her son.

Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her twelve black children. James McBride, journalist, musician and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut. The son of a black minister and a woman who would not admit she was white, James McBride grew up in "orchestrated chaos" with his eleven siblings in the poor, all-black projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn. "Mommy," a fiercely protective woman with "dark eyes full of pep and fire," herded her brood to Manhattan's free cultural events, sent them off on buses to the best (and mainly Jewish) schools, demanded good grades and commanded respect. As a young man, McBride saw his mother as a source of embarrassment, worry, and confusion--and reached thirty before he began to discover the truth about her early life and long-buried pain.

In The Color of Water, McBride retraces his mother's footsteps and, through her searing and spirited voice, recreates her remarkable story. The daughter of a failed itinerant Orthodox rabbi, she was born Rachel Shilsky (actually Ruchel Dwara Zylska) in Poland on April 1, 1921. Fleeing pogroms, her family emigrated to America and ultimately settled in Suffolk, Virginia, a small town where anti-Semitism and racial tensions ran high. With candor and immediacy, Ruth describes her parents' loveless marriage; her fragile, handicapped mother; her cruel, sexually-abusive father; and the rest of the family and life she abandoned. At seventeen, after fleeing Virginia and settling in New York City, Ruth married a black minister and founded the all-black New Brown Memorial Baptist Church in her Red Hook living room. "God is the color of water," Ruth McBride taught her children, firmly convinced that life's blessings and life's values transcend race. Twice widowed, and continually confronting overwhelming adversity and racism, Ruth's determination, drive and discipline saw her dozen children through college--and most through graduate school. At age 65, she herself received a degree in social work from Temple University. Interspersed throughout his mother's compelling narrative, McBride shares candid recollections of his own experiences as a mixed-race child of poverty, his flirtations with drugs and violence, and his eventual self-realization and professional success.

Suppose you could ask God the most puzzling questions about existence - questions about love and faith, life and death, good and evil. Suppose God provided clear, understandable answers. It happened to Neale Donald Walsch. It can happen to you. You are about to have a conversation... I have heard the crying of your heart. I have seen the searching of your soul. I know how deeply you have desired the Truth. In pain have you called out for it, and in joy. Unendingly have you beseeched Me. Show Myself. Explain Myself. Reveal Myself. I am doing so here, in terms so plain, you cannot misunderstand. In language so simple, you cannot be confused. In vocabulary so common, you cannot get lost in the verbiage. So go ahead now. Ask Me anything. Anything. I will contrive to bring you the answer. The whole universe will I use to do this. So be on the lookout; this book is far from My only tool. You may ask a question, then put this book down. But watch. Listen. The words to the next song you hear. The information in the next article you read. The story line of the next movie you watch. The chance utterance of the next person you meet. Or the whisper of the next river, the next ocean, the next breeze that caresses your ear - all these devices are Mine; all these avenues are open to Me. I will speak to you if you will listen. I will come to you if you will invite Me. I will show you then that I have always been there. All ways.

Joan of Arc is a historical novel that showcases Mark Twain's unrestrained admiration for the French heroine's nobility of character. This book, purportedly written by Joan's longtime friend, Sieur Louis de Conte, takes readers on an inspirational journey through her life.

Mark Twain once said, "I like Joan of Arc best of all my books; and it is the best; I know it perfectly well." This sentiment reflects the depth of research and passion Twain invested in writing this novel, which took twelve years of preparation and two years of writing.

Joan of Arc is not just a tale of a young girl leading an army; it's a story of bravery, faith, and the enduring spirit of a woman who became a saint. Twain's portrayal of Joan is filled with respect and admiration, bringing her story to life for generations of readers.

Angela's Ashes begins with a stark reflection: "When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood."

Thus starts the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank's mother, Angela, struggles to provide for her children as Frank's father, Malachy, rarely works, and his wages usually end up at the pub.

Despite Malachy's flaws—his exasperating nature and irresponsibility—he instills in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can offer: a story. Frank becomes enthralled with his father's tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies.

Enduring poverty, near-starvation, and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors, Frank's narrative is one of resilience and survival, told with eloquence, exuberance, and a remarkable capacity for forgiveness. His story is one that touches on the universal truths of the human spirit, underscored by a persistent sense of humor and compassion.

Precious Jones, an illiterate sixteen-year-old, has up until now been invisible: invisible to the father who rapes her and the mother who batters her and to the authorities who dismiss her as just one more of Harlem's casualties. But when Precious, pregnant with a second child by her father, meets a determined and highly radical teacher, we follow her on a journey of education and enlightenment as Precious learns not only how to write about her life, but how to make it her own for the first time.

This book was first published in 1898 in a highly edited version and quickly became a modern spiritual classic, read by millions and translated into over fifty-five languages. John Clarke's acclaimed translation, first published in 1975, is now accepted as the standard throughout the English-speaking world.

Two and a half years before her death in 1897 at the age of 24, Thérèse Martin began writing down her childhood memories at the request of her blood sisters in the Lisieux Carmel. Few could have guessed the eventual outcome. Yet, this "story of my soul" became a beacon of confidence and love, the "little way," and abandonment to God's merciful love. Discover her "mission" in the church and world today.

Worry, doubt, confusion, depression, anger and feelings of condemnation: all these are attacks on the mind. If readers suffer from negative thoughts, they can take heart! Joyce Meyer has helped millions win these all-important battles. In her most popular bestseller ever, the beloved author and minister shows readers how to change their lives by changing their minds. She teaches how to deal with thousands of thoughts that people think every day and how to focus the mind the way God thinks. And she shares the trials, tragedies, and ultimate victories from her own marriage, family, and ministry that led her to wondrous, life-transforming truth--and reveals her thoughts and feelings every step of the way. This special updated edition includes an additional introduction and updated content throughout the book.

Dave Pelzer's remarkable journey from a child who lived in terror of his unstable, violently unpredictable mother's every move, to his emergence as an inspiration the world over is a remarkable tale of survival and the triumph of the human spirit over adversity.

Dave Pelzer's three volumes of memoirs - A Child Called 'It', The Lost Boy and A Man Named Dave - brought this story of courage and triumph against all odds to the world, becoming global bestsellers.

My Story brings these volumes together, following Dave from a childhood spent in fear, his tempestuous teenage years haunted by the spectre of his mother, through to his adulthood, and his great achievement of not only understanding and reconciling the story of his own life, but his dedication to helping others overcome similar adversity.

It is a remarkable story of courage and survival, already embraced by millions and destined to inspire millions more.

Amazing Grace is Jonathan Kozol’s classic book on life and death in the South Bronx—the poorest urban neighborhood of the United States. He brings us into overcrowded schools, dysfunctional hospitals, and rat-infested homes where families have been ravaged by depression and anxiety, drug-related violence, and the spread of AIDS.

But he also introduces us to devoted and unselfish teachers, dedicated ministers, and—at the heart and center of the book—courageous and delightful children. The children we come to meet through the friendships they have formed with Jonathan defy the stereotypes of urban youth too frequently presented by the media. Tender, generous, and often religiously devout, they speak with eloquence and honesty about the poverty and racial isolation that have wounded but not hardened them.

Amidst all of the despair, it is the very young whose luminous capacity for love and transcendent sense of faith in human decency give reason for hope.

Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's anti-apartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality.

The foster son of a Thembu chief, Mandela was raised in the traditional, tribal culture of his ancestors, but at an early age learned the modern, inescapable reality of what came to be called apartheid, one of the most powerful and effective systems of oppression ever conceived. In classically elegant and engrossing prose, he tells of his early years as an impoverished student and law clerk in a Jewish firm in Johannesburg, of his slow political awakening, and of his pivotal role in the rebirth of a stagnant ANC and the formation of its Youth League in the 1950s. He describes the struggle to reconcile his political activity with his devotion to his family, the anguished breakup of his first marriage, and the painful separations from his children. He brings vividly to life the escalating political warfare in the fifties between the ANC and the government, culminating in his dramatic escapades as an underground leader and the notorious Rivonia Trial of 1964, at which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Herecounts the surprisingly eventful twenty-seven years in prison and the complex, delicate negotiations that led both to his freedom and to the beginning of the end of apartheid. Finally he provides the ultimate inside account.

A Child Called "It" is a memoir by Dave Pelzer that recounts the harrowing details of his childhood, marked by extreme abuse at the hands of his alcoholic mother. The story is a testament to one child's resilience in the face of unimaginable adversity. Dave's mother subjected him to a series of tortuous and unpredictable games that almost cost him his life. Stripped of his identity, he was regarded not as her son, but as a slave, and he was referred to as an "it" rather than a boy.

With his bed being an old army cot in the basement and his clothes nothing but tattered rags, Dave's existence was a living nightmare. Food was a luxury, often just spoiled scraps that even dogs would refuse. Isolated and alone, Dave's dreams and determination to find a loving family kept him alive. This memoir is not just a tale of suffering, but also a story about the power of hope and the will to survive.

"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'"

With this basic instruction always in mind, Anne Lamott returns to offer us a new gift: a step-by-step guide on how to write and on how to manage the writer's life. From "Getting Started," with "Short Assignments," through "Shitty First Drafts," "Character," "Plot," "Dialogue." all the way from "False Starts" to "How Do You Know When You're Done?" Lamott encourages, instructs, and inspires. She discusses "Writers Block," "Writing Groups," and "Publication." Bracingly honest, she is also one of the funniest people alive.

If you have ever wondered what it takes to be a writer, what it means to be a writer, what the contents of your school lunches said about what your parents were really like, this book is for you. From faith, love, and grace to pain, jealousy, and fear, Lamott insists that you keep your eyes open, and then shows you how to survive. And always, from the life of the artist she turns to the art of life.

In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American.

It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father—a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man—has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey—first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father’s life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance.

Kahlil Gibran's masterpiece, The Prophet, is one of the most beloved classics of our time. Published in 1923, it has been translated into more than twenty languages, and the American editions alone have sold more than nine million copies.

The Prophet is a collection of poetic essays that are philosophical, spiritual, and, above all, inspirational. Gibran's musings are divided into twenty-eight chapters covering such sprawling topics as love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, housing, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.

El caballero de la armadura oxidada trata de una fantasía adulta que simboliza nuestra ascensión por la montaña de la vida. Nos sentimos reflejados en el viaje del caballero, que está plagado de esperanzas y desesperanzas, de ilusiones y desilusiones, de risas y lágrimas.

Las profundas enseñanzas contenidas en la historia son impartidas con un toque de humor muy sutil. El caballero de la armadura oxidada es mucho más que un libro: es una experiencia que expande nuestra mente, que nos llega al corazón y alimenta nuestra alma.

El libro nos enseña, de una forma muy amena, que debemos liberarnos de las barreras que nos impiden conocernos y amarnos a nosotros mismos para poder ser capaces de dar y recibir amor.

This is a book you will cherish for a lifetime, for within its pages are the secrets of making all your dreams come true. Based on natural laws that govern all of creation, this book shatters the myth that success is the result of hard work, exacting plans, or driving ambition.

Deepak Chopra offers a life-altering perspective on the attainment of success: When we understand our true nature and learn to live in harmony with natural law, a sense of well-being, good health, fulfilling relationships, and material abundance spring forth easily and effortlessly.

Deepak Chopra is the bestselling author of numerous books and audio programs that cover every aspect of mind, body, and spirit. His groundbreaking books blend physics and philosophy, the practical and the spiritual, with dynamic results.

The Seven Laws of Success distills the essence of Chopra's teachings into seven simple, yet powerful, principles that can easily be applied to create success in all areas of your life. Filled with timeless wisdom and practical steps you can apply right away, this is a book you will want to read and refer to again and again.

Mohandas K. Gandhi is one of the most inspiring figures of our time. In his classic autobiography he recounts the story of his life and how he developed his concept of active nonviolent resistance, which propelled the Indian struggle for independence and countless other nonviolent struggles of the twentieth century.

In a new foreword, noted peace expert and teacher Sissela Bok urges us to adopt Gandhi's attitude of experimenting, of testing what will and will not bear close scrutiny, what can and cannot be adapted to new circumstances, in order to bring about change in our own lives and communities.

All royalties earned on this book are paid to the Navajivan Trust, founded by Gandhi, for use in carrying on his work.

In the end, love is more important than everything and it will conquer and overcome anything. Or that’s how Damon saw it, anyway. Damon wanted a book that talked a lot about love.

Damon Courtenay died on the morning of April Fool’s Day. In this tribute to his son, Bryce Courtenay lays bare the suffering behind this young man’s life. Damon’s story is one of life-long struggle, his love for Celeste, the compassion of family, and a fight to the end for integrity.

A testimony to the power of love, April Fool’s Day is also about understanding: how when we confront our worst, we can become our best.

Wake up and take control of your life! From the bestselling author of Inner Strength, Unlimited Power, and MONEY Master the Game, Anthony Robbins, the nation's leader in the science of peak performance, shows you his most effective strategies and techniques for mastering your emotions, your body, your relationships, your finances, and your life.

The acknowledged expert in the psychology of change, Anthony Robbins provides a step-by-step program teaching the fundamental lessons of self-mastery that will enable you to discover your true purpose, take control of your life, and harness the forces that shape your destiny.

The Shepherd of the Hills is a captivating tale set in the enchanting Ozark hills. Originally published in 1907, this novel by Harold Bell Wright explores themes of strength, weakness, success, and failure.

The story unfolds around a mysterious, learned man who retreats from the bustling city life to find solace in the serene backwoods of Mutton Hollow. Here, he encounters intriguing characters like Jim Lane, Grant Matthews, and Sammy, each adding depth and richness to his journey.

Wright's masterful storytelling captures the essence of human struggles and triumphs, painting a vivid picture of life that is both enchanting and challenging. This is not a mere pastoral fantasy; it is a powerful commentary on the human condition, set against the backdrop of the beautiful yet demanding Ozark landscape.

The Shepherd of the Hills continues to inspire readers with its timeless truths and universal appeal. It's a story that resonates across generations, offering insights into grace, dignity, and the enduring spirit of humanity.

Darkness Visible tells the story of William Styron's recovery, laying bare the harrowing realities of clinical depression and chronicling his triumph over the disease that had claimed so many great writers before him. In the summer of 1985, Styron became numbed by disaffection, apathy, and despair, unable to speak or walk while caught in the grip of advanced depression. His struggle with the disease culminated in a wave of obsession that nearly drove him to suicide, leading him to seek hospitalization before the dark tide engulfed him.

His final words are a call for hope to all who suffer from mental illness that it is possible to emerge from even the deepest abyss of despair and “once again behold the stars.”