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The Still Point of the Turning World
by Emily RappTHE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERWith a new chapter detailing the events that have taken place since Ronan's passing in February 2013. Like all mothers, Emily Rapp had ambitious plans for her son, Ronan. He would be smart, loyal, physically fearless, level-headed but fun. He would be good at crossword puzzles like his father. He would be an avid skier like his mother. Rapp would speak to him in foreign languages and give him the best education. But all of these plans changed when Ronan was diagnosed at nine months old with Tay-Sachs disease, a rare and always-fatal degenerative disorder. Ronan was not expected to live beyond the age of three; he would be permanently stalled at a developmental level of six months. Rapp and her husband were forced to re-evaluate everything they thought they knew about raising a family. They would have to learn to live with their child in the moment; to find happiness in the midst of sorrow; to parent without a future. The Still Point of the Turning World is the story of a mother's journey through grief and beyond it. Rapp's response to her son's diagnosis was a belief that she needed to 'make my world big' - to make sense of her family's situation through art, literature, philosophy, theology and myth. Drawing on a broad range of thinkers and writers, from C.S. Lewis to Sylvia Plath, Hegel to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Rapp learns what wisdom there is to be gained from parenting a terminally ill child. In luminous, exquisitely moving prose, she re-examines our most fundamental assumptions about what it means to be a good parent, to be a success, and to live a meaningful life.Emily Rapp Black's follow up memoir, Sanctuary, will publish in January 2021.
The Sting of the Wild
by Justin O. SchmidtThe "King of Sting" describes his adventures with insects and the pain scale that’s made him a scientific celebrity.Silver, Science (Adult Non-Fiction) Foreword INDIES Award 2017Entomologist Justin O. Schmidt is on a mission. Some say it’s a brave exploration, others shake their heads in disbelief. His goal? To compare the impacts of stinging insects on humans, mainly using himself as the test case.In The Sting of the Wild, the colorful Dr. Schmidt takes us on a journey inside the lives of stinging insects. He explains how and why they attack and reveals the powerful punch they can deliver with a small venom gland and a "sting," the name for the apparatus that delivers the venom. We learn which insects are the worst to encounter and why some are barely worth considering. The Sting of the Wild includes the complete Schmidt Sting Pain Index, published here for the first time. In addition to a numerical ranking of the agony of each of the eighty-three stings he’s sampled so far, Schmidt describes them in prose worthy of a professional wine critic: "Looks deceive. Rich and full-bodied in appearance, but flavorless" and "Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch nail embedded in your heel."Schmidt explains that, for some insects, stinging is used for hunting: small wasps, for example, can paralyze huge caterpillars for long enough to lay eggs inside them, so that their larvae emerge within a living feast. Others are used to kill competing insects, even members of their own species. Humans usually experience stings as defensive maneuvers used by insects to protect their nest mates. With colorful descriptions of each venom’s sensation and a story that leaves you tingling with awe, The Sting of the Wild’s one-of-a-kind style will fire your imagination.
The Stirrings: A Memoir in Northern Time
by Catherine Taylor'Part poignant memoir of time and place. Part record of the violence, and indifference, against which most girls grow up. The Stirrings is a pleasure and a shock' Eimear McBride'A superb, moving and disturbing memoir - haunting and unforgettable' Jonathan CoeNo life exists outside the times.This is a story about one young woman coming of age, and about the place and time that shaped her: the North of England in the 1970s and 80s.About the scorching summer of 1976 - the last Catherine Taylor would spend with both her parents in their home in Sheffield.About the Yorkshire Ripper, the serial killer whose haunting presence in Catherine's childhood was matched only by the aching absence of her own father.About a country thrown into disarray by the nuclear threat and the Miners' Strike, just as Catherine's adolescent body was invaded by a debilitating illness.About 1989's 'Second Summer of Love', a time of sexual awakening for Catherine, and the unforeseen consequences that followed it.About a tragic accident, and how the insidious dangers facing women would became increasingly apparent as Catherine crossed into to adulthood.
The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage that Forever Changed the Fate of England
by Susan HigginbothamAward-winning author Susan Higginbotham's The Stolen Crown is a compelling tale of one marriage that changed the fate of England forever On May Day, 1464, six-year-old Katherine Woodville, daughter of a duchess who has married a knight of modest means, awakes to find her gorgeous older sister, Elizabeth, in the midst of a secret marriage to King Edward IV. It changes everything — for Kate and for England.Then King Edward dies unexpectedly. Richard III, Duke of Gloucester, is named protector of Edward and Elizabeth's two young princes, but Richard's own ambitions for the crown interfere with his duties...Lancastrians against Yorkists: greed, power, murder, and war. As the story unfolds through the unique perspective of Kate Woodville, it soon becomes apparent that not everyone is wholly good or evil."A sweeping tale of danger, treachery, and love, The Stolen Crown is impossible to put down!" —Michelle Moran, bestselling author of Cleopatra's Daughter
The Stolen Girl (The Veil and the Crown #1)
by Zia WesleyThe Incredible True Story of Two Girls in the Seventeen-Hundreds Who Become the Powers Behind the Thrones of the World's Greatest EmpiresThe fulfillment of an outrageous prediction seals the fates of two cousins in this true story that begins on a Caribbean sugar plantation and careens wildly towards the thrones of two empires. Innocent Aimée refuses to believe she might ever have to face the intrigue and evil that lurks beneath the exotic beauty and opulence of the Ottoman Empire. Rose mistakenly believes that her marriage to an aristocratic French lieutenant will insure her place in Parisian society. Both will be proven wrong.This first book in Zia Wesley’s The Veil and the Crown series tells the beginning of the extraordinary true story of Aimée Dubucq de Rivery and her cousin, Rose Tascher de La Pagerie…both destined to be queens.Publisher's Note: This is an extraordinarily well-researched novel that is true to the period. As such, there is explicit sexual and violent content that, while typical to the era, is most appropriate for adult readers.The Veil and the Crown, in series order:The Stolen GirlThe French Sultana“I lingered over and savored the vivid descriptions and found it absorbing, historically interesting, well researched and constantly enticing. It was as if Zia took me by the hand and we followed the heroine through all her adventures. Scheherazade, eat your heart out!” - Lorain Fox Davis, Grammy winner and educator
The Stolen Light
by Ved MehtaThe author recounts his experiences as a blind college student, and tells how he came to write his first book.
The Stolen Light: Continents of Exile: 6 (Penguin Modern Classics)
by Ved MehtaBook 6 in Ved Mehta's Continents of Exile series. Nearly 50 years in the making, Continents of Exile is one of the great works of twentieth-century autobiography: the epic chronicle of an Indian family in the twentieth century. From 1930s India to 1950s Oxford and literary New York in the 1960s-80s, this is the story of the post-colonial twentieth century, as uniquely experienced and vividly recounted by Ved Mehta.The Stolen Light engages with the particular difficulties of Mehta's experience: he was blind in a college made for the seeing, he was an Indian in the United States, a Hindu in a Christian environment, a dark-skinned man surrounded by white people. With compelling honesty and humour, Mehta describes his struggles to live an ordinary university life - dating, riding a bicycle, keeping up with his studies - while dealing with incredible obstacles.
The Stone Age: Sixty Years of The Rolling Stones
by Lesley-Ann JonesAn acclaimed rock and roll journalist evokes the legacy of The Rolling Stones—iconic, granitic, commercially unstoppable as a collective; and fascinating, contradictory, and occasionally disturbing as individuals.As Lesley-Ann Jones writes, the Rolling Stones are "still roaming the globe like rusty tanks without a war to go to. Jumping, jacking, flashing, posturing, these septuagenarian caricatures with faces that might have been microwaved but coming on like eternal thirty-year-olds.&” On 12th July 1962, the Rollin&’ Stones performed their first-ever gig at London&’s Marquee jazz club. Down the line, a &‘g&’ was added, a spark was lit and their destiny was sealed. No going back. These five white British kids set out to play the music of black America. They honed a style that bled bluesy undertones into dark insinuations of women, sex, and drugs. Denounced as &‘corruptors of youth&’ and &‘messengers of the devil,&’ they created some of the most thrilling music ever recorded. Now their sound and attitude seem louder and more influential than ever. Elvis is dead and the Beatles are over, but Jagger and Richards bestride the world. The Stones may be gathering moss, but on they roll. Yet how did the ultimate anti-establishment misfits become the global brand we know today? Who were the casualties, and what are the forgotten legacies? Can the artist ever be truly divisible from the art? Lesley-Ann Jones&’s new history tracks this contradictory, disturbing, granitic and unstoppable band through hope, glory and exile, into the juggernaut years and beyond into rock&’s ongoing reckoning . . . where the Stones seem more at odds than ever with the values and heritage against which they have always rebelled. Good, bad, and often ugly, here are the Rolling Stones as never seen before.
The Stone Cold Truth
by Steve Austin J. R. Ross Dennis BryantOn 14 January 2003 Steve Austin was voted the best professional wrestler of the last ten years in a WWE fan poll. In addition to the WWE he has wrestled in the ECW, the WCW and WWF. He has been known as The Ring Master, Superstar Steve Austin, Stunning Steve Austin and now Stone Cold Steve Austin. He has held the tag team belt in WCW and WWF, the Million Dollar Belt and the Intercontinental Championship in WWF. He won the 1996 King of the Ring, the 1997 Royal Rumble and the Larry Flynt Freedom of Speech Slammy. Steve Austin is by far the best and most exciting wrestler today. A notoriously private man, this is the book his fans have been waiting for: his own personal story, told in full for the first time.
The Stone Cold Truth
by Richard OrioloHe's wrestled under many names but to the fans he is and will always be Stone Cold Steve Austin™. His quick wit and colorful use of language combined with his everyman character captured the hearts of fans worldwide and rewrote the dynamics of professional wrestling forever. Steve's ability inside the ring and his quick-witted responses lead to his becoming one of the most popular WWE© Superstars of all times. With the creation of the Stone Cold™ character, Steve's popularity expanded exponentially. It seemed nothing could stop the Texas Rattlesnake™, except himself. The Stone Cold Truth is an unvarnished take on his life, and you know it's the truth " 'cause Stone Cold says so!™"
The Stone Cold Truth (WWE)
by Steve AustinWWE Superstar Stone Cold Steve Austin shares an unvarnished take on his life and his days as a wrestler from growing up in small town Texas to his long-awaited return to the world of professional wrestling. He's wrestled under many names, but to the fans he is and will always be Stone Cold Steve Austin™. His quick wit and colorful use of language combined with his everyman character captured the hearts of fans worldwide and rewrote the dynamics of professional wrestling forever. Steve's ability inside the ring and his quick-witted responses lead to his becoming one of the most popular WWE© Superstars of all times. With the creation of the Stone Cold™ character, Steve's popularity expanded exponentially. It seemed nothing could stop the Texas Rattlesnake™, except himself.
The Stone Fields: Love and Death in the Balkans
by Courtney Angela BrkicWhen she was twenty-three years old, Courtney Angela Brkic joined a UN-contracted forensic team in eastern Bosnia. Unlike many aid workers, Brkic was drawn there by her family history, and although fluent in the language, she was advised to avoid letting local workers discover her ethnicity. Her passionate narrative of establishing a morgue in a small town and excavating graves at Srebenica is braided with her family's remarkable history in what was once Yugoslavia. The Stone Fields, deeply personal and wise, asks what it takes to prevent the violent loss of life, and what we are willing to risk in the process.
The Stone Frigate: The Royal Military College's First Female Cadet Speaks Out
by Kate ArmstrongA memoir from the first female cadet admitted to the Royal Military College of Canada. Kate Armstrong was an ordinary young woman eager to leave an abusive childhood behind her when she became the first female cadet admitted to the Royal Military College of Canada. As she struggled for survival in the ultimate boys’ club, she called on her fierce and humourous spirit to push back against the whims of a domineering and patriarchal organization. Later in life, feeling unfulfilled in her post-military career, she realized that finding her true path forward meant she had to go back to the beginning and revisit the truth of what she had experienced all those years ago.
The Stone Roses And The Resurrection Of British Pop: The Reunion Edition
by John RobbThe band, the lifestyle, the revolution. This classic biography charts the phenomenal rise of The Stone Roses to the icons they are today, using interviews, rehearsal tapes and the archives of author John Robb who was with them from the beginning.Robb's exclusive inside knowledge of The Stone Roses creates a compelling and intimate insight into how the band single-handedly set the blueprint for the resurgence of UK rock 'n' roll in the 1990s: Ian Brown's new lazy-style vocals, Reni's fluid, funk-tinged, ground-breaking drumming, and the guitar genius of John Squire. From the band members' early years to the inception of the Roses, through the tours and success, their influences and style, to the demise of the original line-up and their solo careers; every high and low is documented in minute detail.This is the definitive, most revered account of one of the most influential British bands in pop music history.
The Stone Roses: War and Peace: The Definitive Story
by Simon SpenceThe Stone Roses captures the magic—and chaos—behind the UK band's rise, fall, and recent resurrection.The iconic Brit pop band The Stone Roses became an overnight sensation when their 1989 eponymous album went double platinum. It was a recording that is still often listed as one of the best albums ever made. Its chiming guitar riffs, anthemic melodies, and Smiths-like pop sensibility elevated The Stone Roses to a cult-like status in the UK and put them on the map in the U.S. But theirs is a story of unfulfilled success: their star imploded as their sophomore effort took years to complete and the band broke up acrimoniously in 1996. Sixteen years later, they reunited and have been playing sold out gigs, thrilling fans around the globe, and working on new material. In 2013, they nabbed the coveted headline spot at the Coachella Festival. With one hundred interviews of key figures, forty rare photographs, and exclusive insider material including how they created their music, The Stone Roses charts the band's rise from the backwaters of Manchester to becoming the stars of the "Madchester" scene to their successful comeback years later. Going beyond the myths to depict a band that defined Brit pop, Simon Spence illustrates their incandescent talent and jaw-dropping success while contextualizing them in the 90s music scene. This is the definitive story of The Stone Roses.
The Stone Thrower: A Daughter's Lessons, a Father's Life
by Jael Ealey RichardsonA daughter discovers herself while uncovering her father’s legendary past in football. At the age of thirty, Jael Ealey Richardson travelled with her father – former CFL quarterback Chuck Ealey – for the first time to a small town in southern Ohio for his fortieth high school reunion. Knowing very little about her father’s past, Richardson was searching for the story behind her father’s move from the projects of Portsmouth, Ohio to Canada’s professional football league in the early 1970s. At the railroad tracks where her father first learned to throw with stones, Jael begins an unexpected journey into her family’s past. In this engaging father-daughter memoir, Richardson records some of her father’s never-before told stories: his relationship with his absentee father, memories of his high school and college football victories – including a winning record that remains unbroken to this day – and his up-and-down relationship with the woman he would one day marry. As Richardson begins unravelling the story of her father’s life, she begins to compare her own childhood growing up in Canada, with her father’s US civil rights era upbringing. Along the way, she also discovers the real reason – despite his athletic accomplishments – her father was never drafted into the National Football League. The Stone Thrower is a moving story about race and destiny written by a daughter looking for answers about her own black history. Using insightful interviews, archival records and her personal reflections, Richardson’s journey to learn about her father’s past leads her to her own important discoveries about herself, and what it really means to be black in Canada.
The Stone World
by Joel AgeeFrom the son of acclaimed author James Agee, a haunting novel depicting an American boy&’s childhood in Mexico, ensconced in a world comprised of communist European exiles, local union activists, street children, and avant-garde artists like Frida Kahlo. Joel Agee&’s hallucinatory first novel begins in a house with a large garden in an unnamed Mexican town in the late 1940s, where six-and-a-half-year-old Peter reads, dreams, and plays with his friends. He is a nascent explorer, artist, philosopher, mystic, and scientist. His world is still new, not yet papered over with received knowledge. And the actual world around him is a unique one in history: a community of leftist emigrés who have found refuge in Mexico from the Nazi and fascist regimes of Europe, rubbing shoulders with Mexican labor activists and leftists such as Frida Kahlo. But the emigrés long for home — including Peter&’s step-father, who wants to return to his native Germany. Going back to Europe may not be safe for any of them yet, however, which gives rise to anguished arguments among Peter&’s parents&’s and their tight group of friends. And slowly, Peter begins to comprehend that his world may be turned upside down – that he might be forced to take leave of everyone he knows: his best friend, Arón; his father&’s friend Sándor, who talks about revolution and performs magic tricks; and Zita, the family&’s live-in-maid, who has taught him the consoling mysteries of prayer . . . Steeped in the magic and myths of childhood — yet haunted by a harsh adult world bedeviled by instability and political turmoil — Joel Agee&’s The Stone World is an unforgettable portrait of a family that will inevitably invite comparison with another classic family story, that of his father James Agee&’s A Death in the Family.
The Stonehenge Letters
by Harry KarlinskyWhile digging through the Nobel Archives in Stockholm, trying to figure out why his hero, Sigmund Freud, never received a Nobel Prize, a psychiatrist makes an unusual discovery. Among the unsolicited self-nominations in the museum's 'Crackpot' file, there are six letters addressed to Mr. Ragnar Sohlman, executor of Alfred Nobel's will. Remarkably, all but one is crafted by a different Nobel laureate - including Rudyard Kipling, Ivan Pavlov, Teddy Roosevelt and Marie Curie - and each is an explanation of why and how Stonehenge was constructed. Diligent research eventually uncovers that Alfred Nobel, intrigued by a young woman's obsession with the mysterious landmark, added a secret codicil to his will: 'a prize - reserved exclusively for Nobel laureates - was to be awarded to the person who solves the mystery of Stonehenge.' But is this fact or is this fiction? Weaving together a wealth of primary documents - photos, letters, wills - The Stonehenge Letters acts as a wryly documented archive of a fascinating secret competition, complete with strange but illuminating submissions and a contentious prize-awarding process.
The Stones
by Philip Norman'Details their amazing career and lifestyle ... the tours that saved them from bankruptcy, the drug raids, the mysterious death in his own swimming pool of Brian Jones and the suicide attempt of Marianne Faithfull. After reading this account one can't help but marvel that they have survived'
The Stonewall Reader
by Edmund White New York Public LibraryFor the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, an anthology chronicling the tumultuous fight for LGBTQ rights in the 1960s and the activists who spearheaded it, with a foreword by Edmund White. <P><P>June 28, 2019 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, which is considered the most significant event in the gay liberation movement, and the catalyst for the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States. <P><P>Drawing from the New York Public Library's archives, The Stonewall Reader is a collection of first accounts, diaries, periodic literature, and articles from LGBTQ magazines and newspapers that documented both the years leading up to and the years following the riots. <P><P> Most importantly the anthology spotlights both iconic activists who were pivotal in the movement, such as Sylvia Rivera, co-founder of Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries (STAR), as well as forgotten figures like Ernestine Eckstein, one of the few out, African American, lesbian activists in the 1960s. <P><P>The anthology focuses on the events of 1969, the five years before, and the five years after. Jason Baumann, the NYPL coordinator of humanities and LGBTQ collections, has edited and introduced the volume to coincide with the NYPL exhibition he has curated on the Stonewall uprising and gay liberation movement of 1969.
The Stoning of Sally Kern: The Liberal Attack on Christian Conservatism--and Why We Must Take a Stand
by Sally KernThis book is about Sally Kern, District 84 House of Representatives member from Oklahoma, and her desire to see America return to the conservative principles that guided the nation&’s founders. In January 2008, the pastor&’s wife and former high school teacher gave a speech to a Republican club in Oklahoma City explaining that the founding fathers believed Christian principles would lead to a civilized society, individual self-government, good citizens, the elevation of learning, and a cohesive value system. While explaining the fifth benefit, a cohesive value system, she told of a group of wealthy homosexual activists who threatened the nation&’s moral fabric by attempting to unseat seventy conservative politicians who opposed their agenda. Clips from the speech later were posted on YouTube, generating more than 2 million hits and leading to what she describes as a media &“stoning.&” That didn&’t stop her from winning re-election or from continuing her calls for America to return to the conservative principles that made it great. In this book she warns that there is danger ahead if social conservatives don&’t preserve the nation&’s foundations of morality, truth, and tolerance. She issues a cry for conservatives to stand for their freedom now before they no longer have the right to do so.
The Storied City: The Quest for Timbuktu and the Fantastic Mission to Save Its Past
by Charlie EnglishTwo tales of a city: The historical race to “discover” one of the world’s most mythologized places, and the story of how a contemporary band of archivists and librarians, fighting to save its ancient manuscripts from destruction at the hands of al Qaeda, added another layer to the legend. To Westerners, the name “Timbuktu” long conjured a tantalizing paradise, an African El Dorado where even the slaves wore gold. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, a series of explorers gripped by the fever for “discovery” tried repeatedly to reach the fabled city. But one expedition after another went disastrously awry, succumbing to attack, the climate, and disease. Timbuktu was rich in another way too. A medieval center of learning, it was home to tens of thousands—according to some, hundreds of thousands—of ancient manuscripts, on subjects ranging from religion to poetry, law to history, pharmacology, and astronomy. When al-Qaeda–linked jihadists surged across Mali in 2012, threatening the existence of these precious documents, a remarkable thing happened: a team of librarians and archivists joined forces to spirit the manuscripts into hiding. Relying on extensive research and firsthand reporting, Charlie English expertly twines these two suspenseful strands into a fraught and fascinating account of one of the planet's extraordinary places, and the myths from which it has become inseparable.
The Storied Nature of Human Life
by Frank J. Barrett Karl E. ScheibeThis book explores Theodore Sarbin's life and work, and includes 10 of Sarbin's publications from the last two decades of his life. Theodore R. Sarbin had a career in psychology that spanned 70 years, establishing a place for social role theory in contemporary psychology and making major contributions to understandings of hypnosis, psychopathology, criminal behaviour, and imagination. This book amplifies the voice and influence of one of the most significant critical thinkers in psychology of the last century. The book serves as a commentary on changes now taking place in contemporary psychology; it is historically informed and yet focused on the future of psychological theory and practice. The book will be of great interest to psychologists, philosophers and social scientists.
The Stories They Told Me: The Life of My Deaf Parents
by Cornelia Wallisfurth Maria WallisfurthIn this heartfelt memoir, Maria Wallisfurth recounts the lives of her deaf parents in Germany from the turn of the twentieth century through the 1930s. Her mother, Maria Giefer, was born in 1897 and her father, Wilhelm Sistermann, was born in 1896. The author captures the seasonal rhythms and family life of her mother’s youth in rural Germany, a time filled as much with hardship as it is with love. When she is old enough, she moves to the nearby city of Aachen to attend a school for deaf children, where she learns to lipread and speak. After her schooling is complete, she returns home to work on the family farm and experiences the privations and fear that accompany World War I. She later goes back to Aachen, where she joins a deaf club and falls in love with Wilhelm, a painter and photographer who was raised in the city. Amidst high unemployment, food shortages, and rapid inflation, the two are married in 1925 and two years later the author is born. Under the Nazi regime, Maria and Wilhelm are ordered to undergo forced sterilization. Although their deafness is not hereditary and they submit applications of protest, they are compelled to comply with the law. Despite their dissimilar backgrounds and the political circumstances that roiled their lives, the author’s parents showed great love for each other and their only daughter. The Stories They Told Me is a richly detailed document of time and place and a rare account of deaf lives during this era.
The Stories We Tell: Every Piece of Your Story Matters
by Joanna Gaines"Readers will be inspired by Gaines' desire to find strength in self-discovery." —Publishers WeeklyJoanna Gaines invites us on an authentic and vulnerable journey into her story, a story of doubt and belief, shame and acceptance; a journey from insecurity to self-discovery, and finding truth on the other side of lies.Star of Fixer Upper and New York Times bestselling author, Joanna grew up in a multiracial family, the product of a unique and beautiful love story between her Korean mother and her American father. Experiencing regular teasing as a child because of what made her different, it wasn&’t until later in life that she started to see those differences as the most beautiful part of her story.From stories that brought shame and her soul&’s deepest insecurities to the page to stories about healing and hope and having just a little bit more fun, join Joanna as she journeys through the years of becoming a wife, mother of five, and business owner—looking back to mend what&’s broken and gain clarity in places that are cloudy so she can look forward with grateful and certain eyes, believing that every chapter has its purpose. The Stories We Tell reminds us that every piece of our story matters to who we are today and who we&’ll become tomorrow."This book is not an autobiography. I still have too much to learn and discover about myself, and I feel as though I am only halfway there. This book also is not a how-to, because I certainly don&’t have all the answers. What I hope this book is for you is an invitation to come as you are. To join me, with a vulnerable and open heart, as we connect the chapters of our life stories, and figure out where we go next, learning to move forward from within.The only way to break free was to rewrite my story. Because something would happen every time my pen stopped: it was like my soul was coming back to my body. Like the deepest parts of me that got knocked around and drowned out by all the crap I let the world convince me about who I was came back to the surface. And what was left was only what was real and true. I was, finally, standing in the fullness of my story. I felt hopeful. I felt full. Our story may crack us open, but it also pieces us back together. I&’m grateful to have found truth on the other side of lies. Vulnerability on the other side of fear. Empathy on the other side of pain. This is how I know that every season has a purpose, and that holding, even when it leads to letting go, is what clues us into the bigger story being told."—Joanna Gaines