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The Criminal Child: Selected Essays
by Jean GenetThe Criminal Child offers the first English translation of a key early work by Jean Genet. In 1949, in the midst of a national debate about improving the French reform-school system, a French radio station commissioned Genet to write about his experience as a juvenile delinquent. He sent back a piece about his youth that was a paean to prison instead of the expected horrifying exposé. Revisiting the cruel hazing rituals that had accompanied his incarceration, relishing the special argot spoken behind bars, Genet wondered if regulating that strange other world wouldn&’t simply prevent future children from discovering their essentially criminal nature in the way that he had. The radio station chose not broadcast Genet&’s views. &“The Criminal Child&” appears here with a selection of Genet&’s finest essays, including his celebrated piece on the art of Alberto Giacometti.
In Hoffa's Shadow: A Stepfather, A Disappearance In Detroit, And My Search For The Truth
by Jack GoldsmithAs a young man, Jack Goldsmith revered his stepfather, longtime Jimmy Hoffa associate Chuckie O’Brien. But as he grew older and pursued a career in law and government, he came to doubt and distance himself from the man long suspected by the FBI of perpetrating Hoffa’s disappearance on behalf of the mob. It was only years later, when Goldsmith was serving as assistant attorney general in the George W. Bush administration and questioning its misuse of surveillance and other powers, that he began to reconsider his stepfather, and to understand Hoffa’s true legacy. <p><p> In Hoffa’s Shadow tells the moving story of how Goldsmith reunited with the stepfather he’d disowned and then set out to unravel one of the twentieth century’s most persistent mysteries and Chuckie’s role in it. Along the way, Goldsmith explores Hoffa’s rise and fall and why the golden age of blue-collar America came to an end, while also casting new light on the century-old surveillance state, the architects of Hoffa’s disappearance, and the heartrending complexities of love and loyalty.
Optic Nerve
by Maria Gainza Thomas BunsteadA woman searches Buenos Aires for the paintings that are her inspiration and her refuge. Her life -- she is a young mother with a complicated family -- is sometimes overwhelming. But among the canvases, often little-known works in quiet rooms, she finds clarity and a sense of who she is . . .
A Coach's Life: My Forty Years in College Basketball
by Sally Jenkins John Kilgo Dean SmithLegendary University of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith tells the full story of his fabled career, and shares the life lessons taught and learned over forty years of unparalleled success as a coach and mentor.For almost forty years, Dean Smith coached the University of North Carolina men's basketball program with unsurpassed success- on the court and in shaping young men's lives. In his long-awaited memoir, he reflects on the great games, teams, players, strategies, and rivalries that defined his career, and explains the philosophy that guided him. There's a lot more to life than basketball- though some may beg to differ- but there's a lot more to basketball than basketball, and this is a book about basketball filled with wisdom about life. Dean Smith insisted that the fundamentals of good basketball were the fundamentals of character- passion, discipline, focus, selflessness, and responsibility- and he strove to unite his teams in pursuit of those values.To read this book is to understand why Dean Smith changed the lives of the players he coached, from Michael Jordan, who calls him his second father and who never played a single NBA game without wearing a pair of UNC basketball shorts under his uniform, to the last man on the bench of his least talented team. We all wish we had a coach like Dean Smith in our lives, and now we will have that chance.
The Middle Matters: Why That (Extra)Ordinary Life Looks Really Good on You
by Lisa-Jo BakerThe best-selling author of Never Unfriended opens up about midlife and what it feels like to have outgrown those teenage jeans, but finally grown into the shape of our souls.Do you ever wonder how you woke up one day with all the responsibilities of a grown-up who secretly enjoys going to Costco, can no longer recognize the tween celebrities on the magazines at checkout, but is still surprised when a Starbucks Barista calls you "ma'am"--because your inside self is frozen in time from about twenty years ago? So does Lisa-Jo Baker. Welcome to the middle!In these intimate reflections on midlife, Lisa-Jo Baker invites women to get a good look at their middles and gives permission to embrace them--beyond what the media, the mirror, the magazines, or our teenagers say. Through gutsy, beautiful storytelling, she admits out loud what most women are thinking about marriage, parenting, failure, and how badly we all want to buy those matching Magnolia Market mugs. Her delicious stories come from not being afraid of who she is (Your Age is Not a Dirty Word). Because she has finally grown comfortable in her own skin (The Scale is Not the Boss of You). She's not asking you to seize the day, just to make sure you actually see it; for all its wildly ordinary glory (Sobbing in my Minivan Over Honor Roll). Because Lisa-Jo knows that the middle might be the best part of the love story of life, muffin top included.
I've Seen the End of You: A Neurosurgeon's Look at Faith, Doubt, and the Things We Think We Know
by W. Lee WarrenThis gripping inspirational memoir grapples with the tension between faith and science—and between death and hope—as a seasoned neurosurgeon faces insurmountable odds and grief both in the office and at home.&“Beautiful, haunting, powerful . . .&”—Daniel G. Amen, MDDr. W. Lee Warren, a practicing brain surgeon, assumed he knew most outcomes for people with glioblastoma, head injuries, and other health-care problems. Yet even as he tried to give patients hope, his own heart would sink as he realized, I've seen the end of you.But it became far more personal when the acclaimed doctor experienced an unimaginable family tragedy. That's when he reached the end of himself.Page-turning medical stories serve as the backdrop for a raw, honest look at how we can remain on solid ground when everything goes wrong and how we can find light in the darkest hours of life. I've Seen the End of You is the rare book that offers tender empathy and tangible hope for those who are suffering. No matter what you're facing, this doesn't have to be the end. Even when nothing seems to makes sense, God can transform your circumstances and your life. And he can offer a new beginning.
Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy
by Mark DotyMark Doty's prose has been hailed as "tempered and tough, sorrowing and serene" (The New York Times Book Review) and "achingly beautiful" (The Boston Globe). In Still Life with Oysters and Lemon he offers a stunning exploration of our attachment to ordinary things-how we invest objects with human store, and why.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue
by Danielle OfriSingular Intimacies is the story of becoming a doctor by immersion at New York's Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in the country. When Danielle Ofri first enters the doors as a medical student, she is immediately plunged into the teeming world of urban medicine. It is here that Dr. Ofri develops a profound instinct for healing and, above all, learns to navigate the tangled vulnerabilities of doctor and patient.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Njinga of Angola: Africa's Warrior Queen
by Linda M. HeywoodOne of history’s most multifaceted rulers but little known in the West, Queen Njinga rivaled Elizabeth I and Catherine the Great in political cunning and military prowess. Today, she is revered in Angola as a heroine and honored in folk religions. Her complex legacy forms a crucial part of the collective memory of the Afro-Atlantic world.
The Corporation: An Epic Story of the Cuban American Underworld
by T. J. English“A mob saga that has it all—brotherhood and betrayal, swaggering power and glittering success, and a Godfather whose reach seems utterly unrivaled. What a relentless, irresistible read.” — Don Winslow, New York Times bestselling author of The ForceA fascinating, cinematic, multigenerational history of the Cuban mob in the US from "America’s top chronicler of organized crime"* and New York Times bestselling author of Havana Nocturne.By the mid 1980s, the criminal underworld in the United States had become an ethnic polyglot; one of the most powerful illicit organizations was none other than the Cuban mob. Known on both sides of the law as "the Corporation," the Cuban mob’s power stemmed from a criminal culture embedded in south Florida’s exile community—those who had been chased from the island by Castro’s revolution and planned to overthrow the Marxist dictator and reclaim their nation.An epic story of gangsters, drugs, violence, sex, and murder rooted in the streets, The Corporation reveals how an entire generation of political exiles, refugees, racketeers, corrupt cops, hitmen, and their wives and girlfriends became caught up in an American saga of desperation and empire building. T. J. English interweaves the voices of insiders speaking openly for the first time with a trove of investigative material he has gathered over many decades to tell the story of this successful criminal enterprise, setting it against the larger backdrop of revolution, exile, and ethnicity that makes it one of the great American gangster stories that has been overlooked—until now.Drawing on the detailed reporting and impressive volume of evidence that drive his bestselling works, English offers a riveting, in-depth look at this powerful and sordid crime organization and its hold in the US.
The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI's Original Mindhunter
by John E. Douglas Mark OlshakerThe legendary FBI criminal profiler, number-one New York Times bestselling author, and inspiration for the hit Netflix show Mindhunter delves deep into the lives and crimes of four of the most disturbing and complex predatory killers, offering never-before-revealed details about his profiling process, and divulging the strategies used to crack some of America’s most challenging cases.The FBI’s pioneer of criminal profiling, former special agent John Douglas, has studied and interviewed many of America’s most notorious killers—including Charles Manson, ”Son of Sam Killer” David Berkowitz and ”BTK Strangler” Dennis Rader—trained FBI agents and investigators around and the world, and helped educate the country about these deadly predators and how they operate, and has become a legend in popular culture, fictionalized in The Silence of the Lambs and the hit television shows Criminal Minds and Mindhunter.Twenty years after his famous memoir, the man who literally wrote the book on FBI criminal profiling opens his case files once again. In this riveting work of true crime, he spotlights four of the most diabolical criminals he’s confronted, interviewed and learned from. Going deep into each man’s life and crimes, he outlines the factors that led them to murder and how he used his interrogation skills to expose their means, motives, and true evil. Like the hit Netflix show, The Killer Across the Table is centered around Douglas’ unique interrogation and profiling process. With his longtime collaborator Mark Olshaker, Douglas recounts the chilling encounters with these four killers as he experienced them—revealing for the first time his profile methods in detail. Going step by step through his interviews, Douglas explains how he connects each killer’s crimes to the specific conversation, and contrasts these encounters with those of other deadly criminals to show what he learns from each one. In the process, he returns to other famous cases, killers and interviews that have shaped his career, describing how the knowledge he gained from those exchanges helped prepare him for these.A glimpse into the mind of a man who has pierced the heart of human darkness, The Killer Across the Table unlocks the ultimate mystery of depravity and the techniques and approaches that have countered evil in the name of justice.
You Don’t Have to Be a Champion... to Be a Winner!: A journey from Xerox to F1
by Brian SimsFrom fitting wheels to wheelbarrows in a builders' merchant, Brian rapidly climbed the business ladder and became a Xerox salesman. He was unaware that the professional selling skills he was learning would one day propel him into the glamorous and overtly commercial world of F1. A disastrous debut at a racing driver school was the spark that lit his passion for motor racing. Aware of the need for some serious financial backing to be able to take part, Brian embarked on a variety of highly innovative and often extremely entertaining ways of securing sponsorship, including working with the cast of a top 1970s' BBC sit-com, as well as with John Cleese, of Monty Python fame. A chance meeting on a plane with Max Mosley offered an opportunity of managing one of the most popular F1 Grand Prix circuits. This, in turn, led to the heady heights of a factory drive for Mercedes and the establishment of South Africa's first racing driver school. It was only a matter of time before Brian's exceptional sponsorship-acquisition skills took him to F1, where he quickly made a name for himself by securing multi-million pound deals with three of the most sought after global corporations. However, Brian's greatest achievement in motorsport was to establish the Motorsport Industry Association in 1994, in a bid to secure government recognition of the industry in its own right. Once again, Brian's sales skills played a key role. Without ever becoming a household name as a motor racing champion, Brian's story of how he most definitely became a winner is not only inspirational, but highly entertaining, amusing, often irreverent and informative. You Don't Have to Be a Champion... to Be a Winner is the story of Brian Sims, who left school in 1963 with just 5 GCE O-Levels and a shattered dream of following in his father's footsteps as a Royal Air Force pilot.
In God’s Time: Behold We are Walking on Holy Ground
by Tara StecklerWhat is my life’s purpose? Tears are a sign you’ve hit divine purpose (to always give back and have the awareness to do so). Thank you for reading my book. I thank all God’s people who helped me along the way. I have learned so much from so many. I’m still praying and learning. This is my life’s journey to complete this walk with Jesus my savior inside my heart, filling me with gratitude. My deepest desire is to give back because I’ve been given so much through so many and I thank you all. Blessings, Tara Steckler (formerly known as Tooter Rhew)
The Letters of Samuel Johnson 1782-1784 (The Hyde Edition #Vol. IV)
by Samuel JohnsonThis epistolary endgame includes the breakup of the friendship with Hester Thrale, medical dramas of every description, and a poignant reaching out to new friends and new experiences. The letters of 1782-84 exemplify in abundance what Johnson himself praises and provides, 'the interchange of that social officiousness by which we are habitually endeared to one another.
Pioneer Mother Monuments: Constructing Cultural Memory
by Cynthia Culver PrescottThe angelic woman in a sunbonnet, armed with a rifle or a Bible as she carried civilization forward--an iconic figure--resonated particularly with Mormon audiences. While interest in these traditional monuments began to wane in the postwar period, according to Prescott, a new wave of pioneer monuments emerged in smaller communities during the late twentieth century.
The Medieval Python: The Purposive and Provocative Work of Terry Jones (The New Middle Ages)
by R. F. Yeager Toshiyuki TakamiyaThis is a collection of essays by diverse hands engaging, interrogating, and honoring the medieval scholarship of Terry Jones. Jones' life-long engagement with the Middle Ages in general, and with the work of Chaucer in particular, has significantly influenced contemporary understanding of the period generally, and Middle English letters in particular. Both in film of all types - full-feature comedy (Monty Python and the Holy Grail) as well as educational television series for BBC, the History Channel, etc. (e.g., Medieval Lives) - and in his published scholarship (e.g., Chaucer's Knight, in original and revised editions, Who Murdered Chaucer?), Jones has applied his unique combination of carefully researched scholarship, keen intelligence, fearless skepticism of establishment thinking, and his broad good humor to challenge, enlighten and reform. No one working today in either Middle English studies or in period-related film and/or documentary can proceed untouched by Jones' purposive, provocative views. Jones, perhaps more than any other medievalist, can be said to be an integral part of what Palgrave deems the "common dialogue."
Don't Play in the Sun: One Woman's Journey Through the Color Complex
by Marita Golden"Don't play in the sun. You're going to have to get a light-skinned husband for the sake of your children as it is." In these words from her mother, novelist and memoirist Marita Golden learned as a girl that she was the wrong color. Her mother had absorbed "colorism" without thinking about it. But, as Golden shows in this provocative book, biases based on skin color persist--and so do their long-lasting repercussions. Golden recalls deciding against a distinguished black university because she didn't want to worry about whether she was light enough to be homecoming queen. A male friend bitterly remembers that he was teased about his girlfriend because she was too dark for him. Even now, when she attends a party full of accomplished black men and their wives, Golden wonders why those wives are all nearly white. From Halle Berry to Michael Jackson, from Nigeria to Cuba, from what she sees in the mirror to what she notices about the Grammys, Golden exposes the many facets of "colorism" and their effect on American culture. Part memoir, part cultural history, and part analysis, Don't Play in the Sun also dramatizes one accomplished black woman's inner journey from self-loathing to self-acceptance and pride.
Lost in the Funhouse: The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman
by Bill ZehmeFrom renowned journalist Bill Zehme, author of theNew York TimesbestsellingThe Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin', comes the first full-fledged biography and the only complete story of the late comic genius Andy Kaufman. Based on six years of research, Andy's own unpublished, never-before-seen writings, and hundreds of interviews with family members, friends, and key players in Andy's endless charades, many of whom have become icons in their own right,Lost in the Funhousetakes us through the maze of Kaufman's mind and lets us sit deep behind his mad, dazzling blue eyes to see, firsthand, the fanciful landscape that was his life. Controversial, chaotic, splendidly surreal, and tragically brief--what a life it was. Andy Kaufman was often a mystery even to his closest friends. Remote, aloof, impossible to know, his internal world was a kaleidoscope of characters fighting for time on the outside. He was as much Andy Kaufman as he was Foreign Man (dank you veddy much), who became the lovably bashful Latka on the hit TV seriesTaxi. He was as much Elvis Presley as he was the repugnant Tony Clifton, a lounge singer from Vegas who hated any audience that came to see him and who seemed to hate Andy Kaufman even more. He was a contradiction, a paradox on every level, an artist in every sense of the word. During the comic boom of the seventies, when the world had begun to discover the prodigious talents of Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, John Belushi, Bill Murray, and so many others, Andy was simply doing what he had always done in his boyhood reveries. On the debut ofSaturday Night Live,he stood nervously next to a phonograph that scratchily played the theme from Mighty Mouse. He fussed and fidgeted, waiting for his moment. When it came, he raised his hand and moved his mouth to the words "Here I come to save the day!" In that beautiful deliverance of pantomime before the millions of people for whom he had always dreamed about performing, Andy triumphed. He changed the face of comedy forever by lurching across boundaries that no one knew existed. He was the boy who made life his playground and never stopped playing, even when the games proved too dangerous for others. And in the end he would play alone, just as he had when it was all only beginning. InLost in the Funhouse, Bill Zehme sorts through a life of disinformation put forth by a master of deception to uncover the motivation behind the manipulation. Magically entertaining, it is a singular biography matched only by its singular subject.
Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House
by Sally Bedell SmithNew York Times bestselling author Sally Bedell Smith takes us inside the Kennedy White House with unparalleled access and insight. Having interviewed scores of Kennedy intimates, including many who have never spoken before, and drawing on letters and personal papers made available for the first time, Smith paints a richly detailed picture of the personal relationships behind the high purpose and political drama of the twentieth century's most storied presidency. At the dawn of the 1960s, a forty-three-year-old president and his thirty-one-year-old first lady - the youngest couple ever to occupy the White House - captivated the world with their easy elegance and their cool conviction that anything was possible. Jack and Jackie Kennedy gathered around them an intensely loyal and brilliant coterie of intellectuals, journalists, diplomats, international jet-setters and artists. Perhaps as never before, Washington was sharply divided between the "ins" and the "outs." In his public life, JFK created a New Frontier, stared down the Soviets, and devoted himself to his wife and children. As first lady, Jackie mesmerized foreign leaders and the American people with her style and sophistication, creating a White House renowned for its beauty and culture. Smith brilliantly recreates the glamorous pageant of the Kennedy years, as well as the daily texture of the Kennedys' marriage, friendships, political associations, and, in Jack's case, multiple love affairs. Smith's striking revelations include new information about what drew Jack to his numerous mistresses - and what effects the relationships ultimately had on the women; about the rivalries and resentments among Kennedy's advisers; and about the poignant days before and after Kennedy's assassination.Smith has fashioned a vivid and nuanced portrait not only of two extraordinary individuals but of a new age that sprang to life around them. Shimmering with intelligence and detail, GRACE AND POWER is history at its finest.
999 - My Life on the Frontline of the Ambulance Service
by Dan FarnworthDan Farnworth brings vividly to life his astonishing experiences as a medic working on the frontline of the UK Ambulance Service. When the 999 call goes out, he has little idea what he will find - and how he will cope with the challenges he faces when he gets there. Having worked in the emergency services for more than fifteen years, Dan Farnworth has seen it all. There was the time he was called to take away a dead body - only for the 'corpse' to jolt back into life and demand to know what he was doing in her house. Earlier in his career, he unwittingly disturbed a crime scene as he shared the sad news of the victim's death with her son. Along with the 18,000 other paramedics in the UK who serve us day and night, Dan constantly finds himself pushed into extraordinary circumstances where he not only has to deal with those he has been sent to help, but also their worried families and friends - and even with irate drivers who object to his ambulance getting in their way as he desperately works to save someone's life. There is a special camaraderie among paramedics, and 999 - Life on the Frontline is packed with stories that are sometimes sad, occasionally hilarious, often moving but always inspirational. However, the work also takes its emotional toll, and Dan won an ITV NHS Heroes Award after setting up the Our Blue Light Campaign that helps those in his profession suffering from PTSD - something that struck him after a truly shocking event. His story will make you see our ambulance service in a completely new way.
The Red Sea Bride
by Sylvia FowlerSylvia merges into a coterie of Western women married to Saudis, all of whom rely on their hearts and wits to keep an even keel. The author tells not just her own story, but those of her friends as well as of Saudi women she came to love as fiercely as her own blood relatives. Here is a tale of the passionate human heart and the choices some women make to follow it.
Thomas Hardy: The Time-torn Man (Playaway Adult Nonfiction Ser.)
by Claire TomalinWhitbread Award winner Claire Tomalin's seminal biography of the enigmatic novelist and poet Thomas Hardy. <P> Today Thomas Hardy is best known for creating the great Wessex landscape as the backdrop to his rural stories, starting with Far from the Madding Crowd, and making them classics. But his true legacy is that of a progressive thinker. When he published Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure late in his career, Hardy explored a very different world than that of his rural tales, one in which the plight of lower classes and women take center stage while the higher classes are damned. Ironically, though, Hardy remained cloaked in the arms of this very upper class during the publication of these books, acting at all times in complete convention with the rules of society. Was he using his books to express himself in a way he felt unable to do in the company he kept, or did he know sensationalism would sell? Award-winning author Claire Tomalin expertly reconstructs the life that led Hardy to maintain conventionality and write revolution. <P> Born in Dorset in 1840, Hardy came of age in rather meager circumstances. At sixteen, he left home for London and slowly worked his way through many rejections to become a published writer. Despite his mother's admonitions to never marry, he wed Emma Lavinia Gifford in 1874 and, even though he fell easily in love, stayed true to her till her death in 1912. He frequently toured London society, but few felt they knew the true Hardy, and it is this very core of self that Tomalin elegantly brings us to know so completely. <P> Hardy's work consistently challenged sexual and religious conventions in a way that few other books of his time did. Though his personal modesty and kindness allowed some to underestimate him or even to pity him, they did not prevent him from taking on the central themes of human experience-time, memory, loss, love, fear, grief, anger, uncertainty, death. And it was exactly his quiet life, full of the small, personal dramas of family quarrels, rivalries, and at times, despair, that infuses his works with the rich detail that sets them apart as masterpieces. In this engrossing biography, Tomalin skillfully identifies the inner demons and the outer mores that drove Hardy and presents a rich and complex portrait of one of the greatest figures in English literature.
The Last Greatest Magician in the World: Howard Thurston Versus Houdini & the Battles of the American Wizards
by Jim SteinmeyerHere is the seminal biography of the magician's magician, Howard Thurston, a man who surpassed Houdini in the eyes of showmen and fans and set the standard fro how stage magic is performed today. Everyone knows Houdini-but who was Thurston? In this rich, vivid biography of the "greatest magician in the world," celebrated historian of stage magic Jim Steinmeyer captures the career and controversies of the wonder-worker extraordinaire, Howard Thurston. The public's fickleness over magicians has left Thurston all but forgotten today. Yet Steinmeyer shows how his story is one of the most remarkable in show business. During his life, from 1869 to 1936, Thurston successfully navigated the most dramatic changes in entertainment-from street performances to sideshows to wagon tours through America's still-wild West to stage magic amid the glitter of grand theaters. Thurston became one of America's most renowned vaudeville stars, boldly performing an act with just a handful of playing cards, and then had the foresight to leave vaudeville, expanding his show into an extravaganza with more than forty tons of apparatusand costumes. His touring production was an American institution for nearly thirty years, and Thurston earned a brand name equal to Ziegfeld or Ringling Brothers. Steinmeyer explores the stage and psychological rivalry between Thurston and Houdini during the first decades of the twentieth century- a contest that Thurston won. He won with a bigger show, a more successful reputation, and the title of America's greatest magician. In The Last Greatest Magician in the World, Thurston's magic show is revealed as the one that animates our collective memories.
The Altar of My Soul: The Living Traditions of Santería
by Marta Moreno VegaLong cloaked in protective secrecy, demonized by Western society, and distorted by Hollywood, Santería is at last emerging from the shadows with an estimated 75 million followers worldwide. In The Altar of My Soul, Marta Moreno Vega recounts the compelling true story of her journey from ignorance and skepticism to initiation as a Yoruba priestess in the Santería religion. This unforgettable spiritual memoir reveals the long-hidden roots and traditions of a centuries-old faith that originated on the shores of West Africa. As an Afro-Puerto Rican child in the New York barrio, Marta paid little heed to the storefront botanicas full of spiritual paraphernalia or to the Catholic saints with foreign names: Yemayá, Ellegua, Shangó. As an adult, in search of a religion that would reflect her racial and cultural heritage, Marta was led to the Way of the Saints. She came to know Santería intimately through its prayers and rituals, drumming and dancing, trances and divination that spark sacred healing energy for family, spiritual growth, and service to others. Written by one who is a professor and a Santería priestess, The Altar of My Soul lays before us an electrifying and inspiring faith--one passed down from generation to generation that vitalizes the sacred energy necessary to build a family, a community, and a strong, loving society.
An Unimaginable Act: Overcoming and Preventing Child Abuse Through Erin's Law
by Erin MerrynBy sharing her personal journey through the pain she has suffered at the hands of her perpetrators, author Erin Merryn proves that one person can make a difference in the lives of others. Simply by speaking out and bringing the subject of child sexual abuse to the forefront, she has created a wave of change—change not only in legislature, but also in the hearts of those around her and the world. In this thought-provoking book, readers will discover an in-depth, personal account of Erin's story and how—through using positive outlets—she was able to rebuild her life and heal from a childhood filled with sexual abuse. Part memoir, part resource guide, Erin shares with readers key organizations that provide essential support for victims and caregivers, warning signs that a child who is being abused might display, and why Erin's Law is so essential.