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Life Interrupted
by Teisha RoseTeisha Rose was just twenty-two and on a fast track to corporate success when her life was interrupted by a huge and unexpected hurdle. For the next four years she grieved for her lost dreams, caught in an avalanche of endless hospital ordeals and gruelling rehabilitation. Her devastating physical condition came to dominate her identity ... until she decided to turn her hurdle into hope. Teisha committed herself to finding joy where it seemed impossible. Turning an existence of debilitating lows into a life of exhilarating highs, she left her homeland to travel the world. She left creature comforts to help orphans overseas. She left corporate life to become a social worker among the homeless and lonely. She found new gifts, new perspectives, new homes, new friends and in an amazing set of circumstances she found love. Teisha's extraordinary story will break your heart, inspire you, enthral you and thrill you. Yet Life Interrupted is more than a life story. In the second part of her book, Teisha uses her unique discoveries to help you find your way through whatever might have interrupted your own dreams. Your challenges need not be as tragic as Teisha Rose- few people's are - but like her, you can find your way past your hurdle to a new life full of hope.
Life Inside the Dead Man's Curve: The Chronicles of a Public-Safety Helicopter Pilot
by Kevin McDonald&“A warm compassionate story of helicopters in rescue missions&” (Igor Sikorsky Jr., aviation historian). Travis County STAR Flight, in Austin, Texas, is recognized as one of the premier public-safety helicopter programs in the United States. Life Inside the Dead Man&’s Curve is a firsthand account of the tragedy and triumph witnessed by STAR Flight crews as they respond to a myriad of emergencies, everything from traumatic injuries to rescues―and more. The author, Kevin McDonald, recounts how he turned his passion for flying into an extraordinary career filled with real-life twists and turns that will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. From his early days as a naval aviator, to his twenty years as a STAR Flight pilot, Kevin takes the reader on a powerful, emotional roller coaster ride. Even if you&’re not an aviation enthusiast, you need to strap in for this read. This is more than a book about flying helicopters―it&’s a book about life, life inside the dead man&’s curve. &“A delightful, informative homage to a life of flight.&” —Kirkus Reviews
Life Inside My Mind: 31 Authors Share Their Personal Struggles
by Amber Benson Maureen Johnson Francesca Lia Block Ellen Hopkins Melissa Marr Wendy Toliver Crissa-Jean Chappell Sara Zarr Hannah Moskowitz Cyn Balog Francisco X. Stork Aprilynne Pike Amy Reed Jessica Burkhart Lauren Oliver Cynthia Hand Megan Kelley Hall Robison Wells Dan Wells E. Kristin Anderson Tom Pollock Jennifer L. Armentrout Sarah Fine Karen Mahoney Rachel M. Wilson Candace Ganger Kelly Fiore-Stultz Scott Neumyer Tara Kelly Kimberly McCreight Cindy L. RodriguezYour favorite YA authors including Ellen Hopkins, Maureen Johnson, and more recount their own experiences with mental illness in this raw, real, and powerful collection of essays that explores everything from ADD to PTSD. <P><P>Have you ever felt like you just couldn’t get out of bed? Not the occasional morning, but every day? Do you find yourself listening to a voice in your head that says “you’re not good enough,” “not good looking enough,” “not thin enough,” or “not smart enough”? Have you ever found yourself unable to do homework or pay attention in class unless everything is “just so” on your desk? Everyone has had days like that, but what if you have them every day? You’re not alone. Millions of people are going through similar things. However issues around mental health still tend to be treated as something shrouded in shame or discussed in whispers. It’s easier to have a broken bone—something tangible that can be “fixed”—than to have a mental illness, and easier to have a discussion about sex than it is to have one about mental health. <P><P>Life Inside My Head is an anthology of true-life events from writers of this generation, for this generation. These essays tackle everything from neurodiversity to addiction to OCD to PTSD and much more. The goals of this book range from providing home to those who are feeling alone, awareness to those who are witnessing a friend or family member struggle, and to open the floodgates to conversation. Participating writers include E.K. Anderson, J.L. Armentrout, Cyn Balog, Amber Benson, Francesca Lia Block, Jessica Burkhart, Crissa Chappell, Sarah Fine, Kelly Fiore, Candace Ganger, Meghan Kelley Hall, Cynthia Hand, Ellen Hopkins, Maureen Johnson, Tara Kelly, Karen Mahoney, Melissa Marr, Kim McCreight, Hannah Moskowitz, Scott Neumyer, Lauren Oliver, Aprilynne Pike, Tom Pollack, Amy Reed, Cindy Rodriquez, Francisco Stork, Wendy Tolliver, Rob Wells, Dan Wells, Rachel Wilson, and Sara Zarr.
Life Inside: The Hard Reality of Prison and What It Takes To Survive
by Linda Calvey'One of the best books about prison I've ever read' Kimberley ChambersA chilling look into the brutality of life behind bars and what it's like to be locked away with some of the world's most dangerous criminals.Widely known in the criminal underworld as the 'Black Widow', Linda Calvey spent the first half of her life running with the UK's top gangsters, robbing banks and rubbing shoulders with the Kray twins. That is, until, in 1990, her lover Robbie Cook was murdered at point-blank, and she found herself falsely convicted.Linda was sent away for decades, and would go on to become Britain's longest-serving female prisoner. This is her story of life inside, and how she learnt to survive the many years she spent behind bars.Detailing the systems, characters and rules of prison life, as well as her encounters with notorious criminals Charles Bronson, Rose West and Myra Hindley, Linda gives a full account of her time locked up.Featuring stories of fights, riots, dodgy dealings and what happens when a prison officer gets taken hostage, this is a gritty and eye-opening look at prison life from a woman who has seen it all.
Life Inside
by Mindy LewisThe patient is an ascetically pretty 15½-year-old white female. She is intelligent, fearful, extremely anxious, and depressed. Her rage is poorly controlled and inappropriately expressed. Diagnostic Impression: Program for social recovery in a supportive and structured environment appears favorable. Life Inside In 1967, three months before her sixteenth birthday, Mindy Lewis was sent to a state psychiatric hospital by court order. She had been skipping school, smoking pot, and listening to too much Dylan. Her mother, at a loss for what else to do, decided that Mindy remain in state custody until she turned eighteen and became a legal, law-abiding, "healthy" adult. Life Inside is Mindy's story about her coming-of-age during those tumultuous years. In honest, unflinching prose, she paints a richly textured portrait of her stay on a psychiatric ward -- the close bonds and rivalries among adolescent patients, the politics and routines of institutional life, the extensive use of medication, and the prevalence of life-altering misdiagnoses. But this memoir also takes readers on a journey of recovery as Lewis describes her emergence into adulthood and her struggle to transcend the stigma of institutionalization. Bracingly told, and often terrifying in its truths, Life Inside is a life-affirming memoir that informs as it inspires.
Life in Yellow: A Memoir
by Liz IronsIn this dazzling memoir, the author brings to life the multitude of emotions she went through when faced with the hardships of her mother's colon cancer diagnosis and the death of her distant father. She takes us across the ocean to Italy where she develops life-long friends, finds her true self and, at times, feels utterly alone. We are with Irons in the emptiness that only follows losing your first love and the amazing strength that can be found in the women that surround her. This book is about sharing the author’s inner growth and self-reflection in the hopes that it will illuminate the simple joys that each and every one of us has throughout our daily lives. She helps us capture that feeling of freedom that, for her, was found whizzing across Milan on the back of a motorbike at midnight. Irons' book might even help you find your own color yellow.
A Life in Words: In Conversation with I. B. Siegumfeldt
by Paul Auster I. B. SiegumfeldtAn inside look into Paul Auster's art and craft, the inspirations and obsessions, mesmerizing and dramatic in turn.A remarkably candid, and often surprisingly dramatic, investigation into one writer's art, craft, and life, A Life in Words is rooted in three years of dialogue between Auster and Professor I. B. Siegumfeldt, starting in 2011, while Siegumfeldt was in the process of launching the Center for Paul Auster Studies at the University of Copenhagen. It includes a number of surprising disclosures, both concerning Auster's work and about the art of writing generally. It is a book that's full of surprises, unscripted yet amounting to a sharply focused portrait of the inner workings of one of America's most productive and successful writers, through all twenty-one of Auster's narrative works and the themes and obsessions that drive them.
Life in Two Worlds: A Coach's Journey from the Reserve to the NHL and Back
by Ted NolanIn 1997 Ted Nolan won the Jack Adams Award for best coach in the NHL. But he wouldn&’t work in pro hockey again for almost a decade. What happened?Growing up on a First Nation reserve, young Ted Nolan built his own backyard hockey rink and wore skates many sizes too big. But poverty wasn&’t his biggest challenge. Playing the game meant spending his life in two worlds: one in which he was loved and accepted and one where he was often told he didn&’t belong.Ted proved he had what it took, joining the Detroit Red Wings in 1978. But when his on-ice career ended, he discovered his true passion wasn&’t playing; it was coaching. First with the Soo Greyhounds and then with the Buffalo Sabres, Ted produced astonishing results. After his initial year as head coach with the Sabres, the club was being called the &“hardest working team in professional sports.&” By his second, they had won their first Northeast Division title in sixteen years.Yet, the Sabres failed to re-sign their much-loved, award-winning coach.Life in Two Worlds chronicles those controversial years in Buffalo—and recounts how being shut out from the NHL left Ted frustrated, angry, and so vulnerable he almost destroyed his own life. It also tells of Ted&’s inspiring recovery and his eventual return to a job he loved. But Life in Two Worlds is more than a story of succeeding against the odds. It&’s an exploration of how a beloved sport can harbour subtle but devastating racism, of how a person can find purpose when opportunity and choice are stripped away, and of how focusing on what really matters can bring two worlds together.
A Life in The Wild: George Schaller's Struggle to Save the Last Great Beasts
by Pamela S. TurnerIn this biography, Pamela S. Turner examines the amazing life and groundbreaking work of the man International Wildlife calls the worlds foremost field biologist. Schaller's landmark research revolutionized field biology, demonstrating that it is possible to study dangerous animals in their own habitats: mountain gorillas in Central Africa, predatory tigers in India, mysterious snow leopards in the Himalayas, and many others.
A Life in the Making
by Franz Michael FelderThe inspiring, meditative classic autobiography of a pioneering nineteenth-century autodidact and writer, in English for the first timeOver the 29 years of his short life, Franz Michael Felder worked with furious productivity to better himself and the lives of those around him. From his humble origins in the Austrian village of Schoppernau, he went on to found workers' cooperatives, a political party and even a public library in his own home, as well as writing many literary works. A Life in the Making is both the culmination of this extraordinary career and a chronicle of its development. It is a story of early hardship and fortitude, of Felder's relentless zeal for learning and his lifelong effort to reconcile his own expanding horizons with the enforced confines of the community he was born to. Unfolding in prose of limpid beauty, A Life in the Making becomes a deeply moving tribute to Felder's wife Nanni, and to his enduring belief in the possibility of a better world.
Life in the Leatherwoods
by John Quincy Wolf Gene Hyde Brooks BlevinsLife in the Leatherwoods is one of the country's most delightful childhood memoirs, penned by an Ozark native with a keen, observant eye and a gift for narrative. John Quincy Wolf's relaxed style and colorful characters resemble those of another chronicler of nineteenth-century rural life, Laura Ingalls Wilder. Wolf's acerbic wit and lucid prose infuse the White River pioneers of his story with such life that the reader participates vicariously in their log rollings, house-raisings, spelling bees, hog killings, soap making, country dances, and camp meetings. Originally published by Memphis State University Press in 1974, this new edition includes additional writings of John Q. Wolf and a continuation of the autobiographical narrative after his 1887 move to Batesville. Wolf's writings are valuable resources for southern historians, folklorists, general readers, and scholars of Ozarkiana because they provide a rare glimpse into the social and family life of a largely misunderstood and stereotyped people--the independent hill farmers of the Arkansas Ozarks of the 1870s and 1880s. With Life in the Leatherwoods, Wolf bestows a benediction upon a society that existed vibrantly and humorously in his memory--one that has now forever disappeared from the American countryside. Originally published by Memphis State University Press in 1974, this new edition includes additional writings of John Q. Wolf and a continuation of the autobiographical narrative after his 1887 move to Batesville. Wolf's writings are valuable resources for southern historians, folklorists, general readers, and scholars of Ozarkiana because they provide a rare glimpse into the social and family life of a largely misunderstood and stereotyped people--the independent hill farmers of the Arkansas Ozarks of the 1870s and 1880s. With Life in the Leatherwoods, Wolf bestows a benediction upon a society that existed vibrantly and humorously in his memory--one that has now forever disappeared from the American countryside.
A Life in the Hills: The Katharine Stewart Omnibus
by Katharine StewartA collection of memoirs about an English woman and her family giving up city life for the Scottish Highlands in the 1950s. Katharine Stewart, who died in 2013, was one of Scotland&’s best-loved writers on rural life in the Highlands. A Croft in the Hills, her first book, tells the story of how a couple and their young daughter, fresh from city life, took over a remote hill croft near Loch Ness and made a living from it. Full of warm personal insights, good humor and a love of living things, it has become a classic and has rarely been out of print since it was first published in 1960. This omnibus gathers A Croft in the Hills together with some of Katharine&’s later books: A Garden in the Hills, describing a year in the life of her Highland garden; A School in the Hills, a history of the school at Abriachan that eventually became the Stewarts&’ family home; and The Post in the Hills, which tells the story of the postal service in the Highlands, from the point of view of Katharine&’s later role as postmistress of the smallest post office in Scotland, run from the porch of her Abriachan schoolhouse. Each of these books glows with what Neil Gunn described as &“its unusual quality, its brightness and its wisdom.&” The omnibus brings the grace, charm, and wisdom of Stewart&’s writing to a new generation of readers.Praise for Katharine Stewart&“Stewart&’s memories are, as she says herself a tale of other times, almost a glimpse of legend . . . Evocative and charming.&” —Scottish Book Collector on A Croft in the Hills
Life in the Georgian Court
by Catherine CurzonThis lively history of Europe&’s royal families through the 18th and early 19th centuries reveals the decadence and danger of court life. As the glittering Hanoverian court gives birth to the British Georgian era, a golden age of royalty dawns in Europe. Houses rise and fall, births, marriages and scandals change the course of history. Meanwhile, in France, Revolution stalks the land. Life in the Georgian Court pulls back the curtain on the opulent court of the doomed Bourbons, the absolutist powerhouse of Romanov Russia, and the epoch-defining royal family whose kings gave their name to the era, the House of Hanover. Beneath the powdered wigs and robes of state were real people living lives of romance, tragedy, intrigue and eccentricity. Historian Catherine Curzon reveals the private lives of these very public figures, vividly recounting the arranged marriages that turned to love or hate and the scandals that rocked polite society. Here the former wife of a king spends three decades in lonely captivity, King George IV makes scandalous eyes at the toast of the London stage, and Marie Antoinette begins her final journey through Paris as her son sits alone in a forgotten prison cell.Life in the Georgian Court is a privileged peek into the glamorous, tragic and iconic courts of the Georgian world, where even a king could take nothing for granted.
Life in the Garden
by Penelope LivelyFrom the Booker Prize winner and national bestselling author, reflections on gardening, art, literature, and lifePenelope Lively takes up her key themes of time and memory, and her lifelong passions for art, literature, and gardening in this philosophical and poetic memoir. From the courtyards of her childhood home in Cairo to a family cottage in Somerset, to her own gardens in Oxford and London, Lively conducts an expert tour, taking us from Eden to Sissinghurst and into her own backyard, traversing the lives of writers like Virginia Woolf and Philip Larkin while imparting her own sly and spare wisdom. "Her body of work proves that certain themes never go out of fashion," writes the New York Times Book Review, as true of this beautiful volume as of the rest of the Lively canon.Now in her eighty-fourth year, Lively muses, "To garden is to elide past, present, and future; it is a defiance of time."
Life in the Fast Lane
by Aidan ColesThere is a dark underbelly to every city, and one group of professionals spend most of their time lurking within. Unloved, unappreciated and mostly unseen: tow truck drivers. Join accomplished magazine columnist and 20-year towing veteran Aidan Coles as he blows the hood off the true story of what being a towman is. Ever wondered why tow trucks seem to block the middle of a busy street in rush hour for no apparent reason? Or how tow truck drivers seem to always know exactly where the illegally-parked cars are? Or even what happens to those cars once they've been hauled away? This book reveals all, from high-speed impacts to high-jinks on scooters. Take it from the author himself: "I've been the low boy all the way to general manager and have done every job in the industry including toilets. Yes, I've impounded a portable toilet." Hilarious, poignant and revealing, Life in the Fast Lane will ensure you never look at a tow truck the same way again.
Life in the Fairway
by Chad BonhamFootball has Tim Tebow and Drew Brees, basketball has Jeremy Lin, and the PGA Tour Leaderboard has Ben Crane, Webb Simpson, Jonathan Byrd, and Stewart Cink. Chad Bonham, author of Life in the Fairway presents in-depth biographies including the testimonies of these highly ranked golf pros and more. Draw courage from their relentless desire to achieve excellence on and off the course. "The pursuit of integrity as a father and a husband always boils down to trust." - Jonathan Byrd Golf is a game of integrity. Players are their own referees. They make dozens of moral choices in each round. Draw inspiration from these leaders to live a life of unashamed integrity. Step into their family lives and close the book encouraged by their chiseled commitment to living for an audience of One, our Lord Jesus Christ. Reading Life in the Fairway can be a life-changing event for all who participate in the game. The full-color book is an excellent gift for any golfer, sports enthusiast, leader, or men's Bible study group.
A Life in the Day
by Hunter Davies'Ken Loach might have turned all this into a powerful social film, but the avuncular Davies sprinkles in so many cheery anecdotes that the book bounces along enjoyably' (Sunday Times) - Praise for VOLUME 1: THE CO-OP'S GOT BANANAS! Hunter Davies’ childhood lived amongst the post-war dirt and grime of Carlisle was immediately hailed as a classic memoir from one of Britain’s foremost columnists of the past half century. The Co-op’s Got Bananas! left our protagonist at the cusp of working for one of the world’s greatest newspapers – The Sunday Times. In this much-anticipated sequel, Hunter now looks back across five decades of successful writing to reflect on his colourful memories of the living in London during the height of the Swinging Sixties, becoming editor of Britain’s first colour weekend supplement The Sunday Times magazine; where he befriended the Beatles; and reporting on (and partying with) some of the biggest names in television, film and theatre of the day. As time moved on into the 1970s, '80s and '90s, Hunter encountered the likes of Sir Michael Caine, George Best, Melvyn Bragg, Joan Bakewell, Sir Sean Connery, Cilla Black, Paul Gascoigne, and Wayne Rooney to name a few. Hunter brings the story full circle to reflect on his years spent with the love of his life – the bestselling writer Margaret Forster, who sadly passed away in February 2016. This will not only be a colourful and enjoyable memoir of what it was like to be at the epicentre of Britain’s artistic heart, but also an emotional, heart-felt tribute to family, friends and colleagues. For those captivated by The Co-op’s Got Bananas!,this sequel is a must read.
Life in the Clearings versus the Bush (New Canadian Library)
by Susanna Moodie Carol ShieldsIn the sequel to Roughing It in the Bush, Susanna Moodie portrays the relatively sophisticated society springing up in the clearings along Lake Ontario. During a trip from Belleville to Niagara Falls, Moodie acts as a meticulous observer of the social customs and practices of the times.Invaluable as social history and as a candid self-portrait, Life in the Clearings versus the Bush chronicles, with wit and wisdom, Canadian society in the mid-19th century.The NCL edition is an unabridged reprint of the complete original text.From the Paperback edition.
Life in the City of Dirty Water: A Memoir of Healing
by Clayton Thomas-MullerAn electrifying memoir that braids together the urgent issues of Indigenous rights and environmental policy, from a nationally and internationally recognized activist and survivor.There have been many Clayton Thomas-Mullers: The child who played with toy planes as an escape from domestic and sexual abuse, enduring the intergenerational trauma of Canada's residential school system; the angry youngster who defended himself with fists and sharp wit against racism and violence, at school and on the streets of Winnipeg and small-town British Columbia; the tough teenager who, at 17, managed a drug house run by members of his family, and slipped in and out of juvie, operating in a world of violence and pain.But behind them all, there was another Clayton: the one who remained immersed in Cree spirituality, and who embraced the rituals and ways of thinking vital to his heritage; the one who reconnected with the land during summer visits to his great-grandparents' trapline in his home territory of Pukatawagan in northern Manitoba.And it's this version of Clayton that ultimately triumphed, finding healing by directly facing the trauma that he shares with Indigenous peoples around the world. Now a leading organizer and activist on the frontlines of environmental resistance, Clayton brings his warrior spirit to the fight against the ongoing assault on Indigenous peoples' lands by Big Oil.Tying together personal stories of survival that bring the realities of the First Nations of this land into sharp focus, and lessons learned from a career as a frontline activist committed to addressing environmental injustice at a global scale, Thomas-Muller offers a narrative and vision of healing and responsibility.
A Life in the Bush
by Roy MacgregorWinner of The CAA-Birks Family Foundation Award for Biography The 2000 Ottawa-Carlton Book Award The (U.S.) Rutstrum Award for Best Wilderness Book "A portrait of a true original."--The Hamilton Spectator In 1929, at the age of twenty-two, Duncan MacGregor, the son of a lumberman, great-grandson of a voyageur, and an avid reader and baseball fan, headed off into the largest tract of preserved bush in the world: Ontario's Algonquin Park. When he got there, he was home for the rest of his life. From the true nature of fishing to the harsh realities of raising a family in the woods, from the role of fear in the bush to the small nuances of family relationships, A Life in the Bush is painted on a canvas both vast and richly detailed. A story that captures the tough physical demands, the rich life of the senses, and the unselfconscious freedom that comes from living apart from town and city. In this beautifully crafted memoir of his father, Roy MacGregor paints an intimate portrait of an unusual man and spins a spellbinding tale of a boy's complex relationship with his father. He also evokes, perhaps for the first time in Canadian literature, the bush the way bush people see it, an insider's view of life in the totemic Canadian wilderness.
A Life in the Balance: The Billy Wayne Sinclair Story, A Journey from Murder to Redemption Inside America's Worst Prison System
by Billy Wayne Sinclair Jodie SinclairSentenced to death in 1965 at age twenty for an unpremeditated murder during the bungled holdup of a convenience store, Billy Wayne spent his first seven prison years on death row. When the death penalty was abolished, his sentence was life. Three-and-a-half decades later, Billy Wayne is still behind bars-feared by many politicians and prison officials for his well-known incorruptibility and unrelenting crusade for prison reform. This is his memoir.A Life in the Balance begins with an almost unbearable account of his early years-when he was so abused by his father one wonders how he survived-and his "escape" into a crowd of hooligans, which led him to the fateful day in 1965 when he held up the convenience store. His story takes you behind the metal doors of the Angola State Penitentiary to reveal the brutal truth of life inside. Here you will meet Billy Ray, Billy Wayne's blood brother; old Emmitt Henderson, who died of prison neglect; Jamie Parks, a seventeen-year-old kid whose fate was sealed the day he arrived in Angola; Big Mick, who ran drugs in the prison to earn money to put his handicapped sister through college; Wilbert Rideau, Billy Wayne's coeditor on The Angolite; the Dixie Mafia; and Richard Clark Hand, the young lawyer who took on Billy Wayne's case and has been fighting for his release for thirty years.
Life in the Backwoods
by Susanna MoodieLife in the Backwoods in Susanna Moodie's follow-up to her first memoir, Roughing It in the Bush. She and her family leave the home they've carved out in the bush for new opportunities in Canada's frontier. Once again she chronicles their struggles, sorrows, and joys as they try to build a life for themselves in a place that can be equal parts bounteous and unforgiving. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
A Life in Smoke: A Memoir
by Julia HansenHansen recounts her seven days of quitting smoking cold-turkey. Interspersed with thoughts and feelings at the time, are memories of her previous life as a smoker. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR (booknews. com)
A Life in Smoke
by Julia Hansen"I accepted the certainty of my untimely death with gallows humor and a calculator. I'd read somewhere that each cigarette you smoke knocks seven minutes off your time on the planet. To amuse myself, I did the math: 153,000 cigarettes = two years of my life, up in smoke." Julia Hansen first lit up at nineteen. Twenty years later, she was editing books about health -- and smoking a pack or two a day. She denied her son fast food, but smoked in the house and car; curtailed his video games, but lit up at his soccer matches. Despite repeated attempts to quit, she always crawled back to her beloved menthol lights. Smoking had become a metaphorical chain around her neck, shackling her to an early death. Haunted by a nightmarish vision of her future -- her son at her deathbed, begging her not to leave him -- Hansen devised a drastic quit method. She bought a 72-foot length of chain that was "unwieldy as a corpse" and locked herself to a radiator in her dining room. What followed: seven days of cold-turkey misery, comic absurdity, and revelation as Hansen stepped from behind her wall of smoke to face her addiction to nicotine -- and some painful truths. Clanking around her house like Marley's ghost, white-knuckling cravings, and struggling to understand tobacco's unyielding grip on her, Hansen confronted her life in smoke: fractured relationships, lifelong battles with alcohol and depression, and a profound sense of emptiness. On day 1, the chain was her addiction to nicotine, each link a story about cigarettes and self-loathing. By day 7, it had revealed its ringing, rattling truth -- that every smoker has a story, and it always centers on clinging to a comfort that can kill you. In the end, Hansen's story was painfully simple: She smoked to survive her life. And then, to save it, she quit. Fierce and funny, honest and utterly absorbing, A Life in Smoke is Julia Hansen's evocative and inspiring account of the extreme measures she took to quit smoking -- decidedly not recommended by the medical profession.
A Life in Smoke
by Julia Hansen"I accepted the certainty of my untimely death with gallows humor and a calculator. I'd read somewhere that each cigarette you smoke knocks seven minutes off your time on the planet. To amuse myself, I did the math: 153,000 cigarettes = two years of my life, up in smoke." Julia Hansen first lit up at nineteen. Twenty years later, she was editing books about health -- and smoking a pack or two a day. She denied her son fast food, but smoked in the house and car; curtailed his video games, but lit up at his soccer matches. Despite repeated attempts to quit, she always crawled back to her beloved menthol lights. Smoking had become a metaphorical chain around her neck, shackling her to an early death. Haunted by a nightmarish vision of her future -- her son at her deathbed, begging her not to leave him -- Hansen devised a drastic quit method. She bought a 72-foot length of chain that was "unwieldy as a corpse" and locked herself to a radiator in her dining room. What followed: seven days of cold-turkey misery, comic absurdity, and revelation as Hansen stepped from behind her wall of smoke to face her addiction to nicotine -- and some painful truths. Clanking around her house like Marley's ghost, white-knuckling cravings, and struggling to understand tobacco's unyielding grip on her, Hansen confronted her life in smoke: fractured relationships, lifelong battles with alcohol and depression, and a profound sense of emptiness. On day 1, the chain was her addiction to nicotine, each link a story about cigarettes and self-loathing. By day 7, it had revealed its ringing, rattling truth -- that every smoker has a story, and it always centers on clinging to a comfort that can kill you. In the end, Hansen's story was painfully simple: She smoked to survive her life. And then, to save it, she quit. Fierce and funny, honest and utterly absorbing, A Life in Smoke is Julia Hansen's evocative and inspiring account of the extreme measures she took to quit smoking -- decidedly not recommended by the medical profession.