Download or read book Life In Spite of Me written by Kristen Jane Anderson and published by Multnomah. This book was released on 2011-05-17 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: She wanted to die. God had other plans. Overwhelmed by wave after wave of emotional trauma, Kristen Anderson no longer wanted to live. One January night, determined to end her pain once and for all, the seventeen-year-old lay across train tracks not far from her home and waited to die. Instead of peace, she found herself immersed in a whole new nightmare. Before the engineer could bring the train to a stop, thirty-three freight cars passed over her at fifty-five miles per hour. After the train stopped and Kristen realized she was still alive, she looked around—and saw her legs ten feet away. Surviving her suicide attempt but losing her legs launched Kristen into an even deeper battle with depression and suicidal thoughts, as well as unrelenting physical pain—all from the seat of a wheelchair. But in the midst of her darkest days, Kristen discovered the way to real life and a purpose for living. For anyone struggling to find the strength to go on, the message of this heart-wrenching yet hope-building book is a clear and extraordinary reminder that even when we give up on life, God doesn’t give up on us. Includes notes of encouragement from Kristen and resources for suicide prevention.
Download or read book Life In Spite of Me written by Kristen Jane Anderson and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2011-05-17 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: She wanted to die. God had other plans. Overwhelmed by wave after wave of emotional trauma, Kristen Anderson no longer wanted to live. One January night, determined to end her pain once and for all, the seventeen-year-old lay across train tracks not far from her home and waited to die. Instead of peace, she found herself immersed in a whole new nightmare. Before the engineer could bring the train to a stop, thirty-three freight cars passed over her at fifty-five miles per hour. After the train stopped and Kristen realized she was still alive, she looked around—and saw her legs ten feet away. Surviving her suicide attempt but losing her legs launched Kristen into an even deeper battle with depression and suicidal thoughts, as well as unrelenting physical pain—all from the seat of a wheelchair. But in the midst of her darkest days, Kristen discovered the way to real life and a purpose for living. For anyone struggling to find the strength to go on, the message of this heart-wrenching yet hope-building book is a clear and extraordinary reminder that even when we give up on life, God doesn’t give up on us. Includes notes of encouragement from Kristen and resources for suicide prevention.
Download or read book Yes to Life written by Viktor E. Frankl and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2020-03-23 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Find hope even in these dark times with this rediscovered masterpiece, a companion to his international bestseller Man’s Search for Meaning. Eleven months after he was liberated from the Nazi concentration camps, Viktor E. Frankl held a series of public lectures in Vienna. The psychiatrist, who would soon become world famous, explained his central thoughts on meaning, resilience, and the importance of embracing life even in the face of great adversity. Published here for the very first time in English, Frankl’s words resonate as strongly today—as the world faces a coronavirus pandemic, social isolation, and great economic uncertainty—as they did in 1946. He offers an insightful exploration of the maxim “Live as if you were living for the second time,” and he unfolds his basic conviction that every crisis contains opportunity. Despite the unspeakable horrors of the camps, Frankl learned from the strength of his fellow inmates that it is always possible to “say yes to life”—a profound and timeless lesson for us all.
Download or read book My Life In Spite of Myself written by Roy Clark and published by . This book was released on 1995-06 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is Roy Clark's own story, full of fascinating glimpses of his foibles and resounding success, his journey from professional baseball hopeful to high school dropout, from saloon singer to Vegas headliner, and finally, his rise to TV stardom. A moving testament to one man's love of music and the rich reward of hard work.
Download or read book John Prine written by Eddie Huffman and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2015-03-15 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a range that spans the lyrical, heartfelt songs “Angel from Montgomery,” “Sam Stone,” and “Paradise” to the classic country music parody “You Never Even Called Me by My Name,” John Prine is a songwriter’s songwriter. Across five decades, Prine has created critically acclaimed albums—John Prine (one of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time), Bruised Orange, and The Missing Years—and earned many honors, including two Grammy Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting from the Americana Music Association, and induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. His songs have been covered by scores of artists, from Johnny Cash and Miranda Lambert to Bette Midler and 10,000 Maniacs, and have influenced everyone from Roger McGuinn to Kacey Musgraves. Hailed in his early years as the “new Dylan,” Prine still counts Bob Dylan among his most enthusiastic fans. In John Prine, Eddie Huffman traces the long arc of Prine’s musical career, beginning with his early, seemingly effortless successes, which led paradoxically not to stardom but to a rich and varied career writing songs that other people have made famous. He recounts the stories, many of them humorous, behind Prine’s best-known songs and discusses all of Prine’s albums as he explores the brilliant records and the ill-advised side trips, the underappreciated gems and the hard-earned comebacks that led Prine to found his own successful record label, Oh Boy Records. This thorough, entertaining treatment gives John Prine his due as one of the most influential songwriters of his generation.
Download or read book In Spite of Lions written by Scarlette Pike and published by Cedar Fort Publishing & Media. This book was released on 2023-04-17 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anna's life has always been controlled by her domineering mother and expectations of London's high society. Hoping to start over, she changes her name and boards the first boat to Africa. As Anna adjusts to a drastically different life in the barren landscape of Africa, she finds hope that she can finally be free from her past. But when a battle between Europeans and the African tribe she has come to call her family looms, she realizes that her past may never truly leave her, and she must make a decision that will not just affect her own life, but also the lives of the people she loves.
Download or read book Bad Childhood Good Life written by Laura Schlessinger and published by Dr. Laura Schlessinger. This book was released on 2006-01-03 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this important book, Dr. Laura Schlessinger shows men and women that they can have a Good Life no matter how Bad their Childhood. For each of us, there is a connection between our early family dynamics and experiences and our current attitudes and decisions. Many of the people Dr. Laura has helped did not realize how their histories impacted their adult lives, or how their choices in people, repetitive situations, and decisions -- even their emotional reactions -- were connected to those early negative experiences, playing a major role in their current unhappiness. For these people and millions like them, too much time is dedicated to repeating the ugly dynamics of childhood in a vain attempt to repair or cope with deep hurt and longings. Too often they use their emotional pain to control others or excuse their own inappropriate and destructive behaviors. Some turn to therapy, only to find themselves trapped in their self-pitying victim mode, robbed of optimism, confidence, and growth. Dr. Laura will help you realize that no matter what circumstances you came from or currently live in, you are ultimately responsible for how you react to them. The acceptance of this basic truth is the source of your power to secure the Good Life you long for. In her signature straightforward style, with real-life examples, Dr. Laura shows you what you will gain by not being satisfied with an identity as a victim, or even as a survivor -- but striving to be a victor! In Bad Childhood -- Good Life, Dr. Laura will guide you to accept the truth of the assaults on your psyche and soul, understand your unique coping style and how it impacts your daily thoughts and actions, and help you embrace a life of more peace and happiness. Bad Childhood -- Good Life comes from a compassionate and personal place. Dr. Laura also reveals some of her own experiences with a difficult childhood and what efforts it took to attain a Good Life. She writes, "My resilience has paid off, and I'm doing the best I can with what I've got." Now you can, too.
Download or read book Spite written by Simon McCarthy-Jones and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spite angers and enrages us, but it also keeps us honest. In this provocative account, a psychologist examines how petty vengeance explains human thriving. Spite seems utterly useless. You don't gain anything by hurting yourself just so you can hurt someone else. So why hasn't evolution weeded out all the spiteful people? As psychologist Simon McCarthy-Jones argues, spite seems pointless because we're looking at it wrong. Spite isn't just what we feel when a car cuts us off or when a partner cheats. It's what we feel when we want to punish a bad act simply because it was bad. Spite is our fairness instinct, an innate resistance to exploitation, and it is one of the building blocks of human civilization. As McCarthy-Jones explains, some of history's most important developments—the rise of religions, governments, and even moral codes—were actually redirections of spiteful impulses. A provocative, engaging read, Spite shows that if you really want to understand what makes us human, you can't just look at noble ideas like altruism and cooperation. You need to understand our darker impulses as well.
Download or read book How to Enjoy Your Life in Spite of it All written by Ken Keyes and published by Love Line Books. This book was released on 1980 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "twelve pathways" explained in this book are a modern, practical condensation of thousands of years of accumulated wisdom. A must for people sincerely interested in their personal growth.
Download or read book In Spite of Myself written by Christopher Plummer and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2009-10-06 with total page 658 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Canada’s most celebrated and acclaimed actor lets loose in a magnificent memoir that will delight and enchant readers across the country. A rollicking, rich self-portrait written by one of today’s greatest living actors. The story of a “young wastrel, incurably romantic, spoiled rotten” – his privileged Montreal background, rich in Victorian gentility, included steam yachts, rare orchid farms, music lessons in Paris and Berlin – “who tore himself away from the ski slopes to break into the big, bad world of theater not from the streets up but from an Edwardian living room down.” Plummer writes of his early acting days – on radio and stage with William Shatner and other fellow Canadians; of the early days of the Stratford Festival in southern Ontario; of his Broadway debut at twenty-four in The Starcross Story, starring Eva Le Gallienne (“It opened and closed in one night, but what a night!”); of joining Peter Hall’s Royal Shakespeare Company (its other members included Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave and Peter O’Toole); of his first picture, Stage Struck, directed by Sidney Lumet; and of The Sound of Music, which he affectionately dubbed “S&M.” He writes about his legendary colleagues: Dame Judith Anderson (“the Tasmanian devil from Down Under”); Sir Tyrone Guthrie; Sir Laurence Olivier; Elia Kazan (“this chameleon of chameleons might change into you, wear your skin, steal your soul”); and “that reprobate” Jason Robards, among many others. A revelation of the wild and exuberant ride that is the actor’s – at least this actor’s – life.
Download or read book The Invention of Solitude written by Paul Auster and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2010-11-25 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'One day there is life . . . and then, suddenly, it happens there is death.' So begins Paul Auster's moving and personal meditation on fatherhood. The first section, 'Portrait of an Invisible Man', reveals Auster's memories and feelings after the death of his father. In 'The Book of Memory' the perspective shifts to Auster's role as a father. The narrator, 'A', contemplates his separation from his son, his dying grandfather and the solitary nature of writing and story-telling.
Download or read book Spirals written by Joan Gould and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-10-31 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A journey to the center of a woman’s life.”—Maggie Scarf “A moving and exquisitely drawn portrait . . . Spirals is about commitment, courage, and the meaning of love.”—New Woman “Family. Familiar. Only my family isn’t familiar at all. My friends are familiar, my friends are as dependable as telephone poles, but the members of my family change in size, looks, powers, burdens and expectations, when all I ask of them is that they remain the same. Children grow, gather power while their parents lose it, leave home, travel in other orbits. Parents move, remarry or don’t remarry, dwindle away, die. Spouses may stay around for a long while—mine did, for twenty-eight years—but sooner or later they leave. And I keep changing too, even though I’m the one who stays home. I picture myself in the role of mother, particularly the mother of young children, because this is a self I like—distracted and short-tempered, I grant you, but well-meaning in spite of outbursts. Still, I have to recognize that this is different from the self who was a daughter or wife—and these don’t have much in common with the new, apprentice selves, who have to learn a whole set of limits, as mother of adults, mother-in-law, widow and grandmother. One thing these selves have in common, however: They’re not the same as my self when I’m alone.”—from Spirals
Download or read book Saying YES to LIFE in Spite of EVERYTHING written by Amy Guduza and published by . This book was released on 2021-04-07 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Saying Yes to Life In Spite of Everything is a combination of both a memoir and a self-help book. It begins by detailing the lived experiences of Amy Guduza, who once, felt unworthy of love. Her lack of emotionally available parents created a void in her life that she filled with things that left her unfulfilled. Her mother's willingness to sacrifice everything all in the name of God led to the neglect of her children. The constant manipulation, dictatorship and disregard of Amy's feelings and well-being, resulted in a turn for the worst in her mental state. On a journey to find herself, Amy managed to pave her own path to freedom - freedom from depression, amongst other things. In the midst of the transition from pain to a new beginning is hope. Amy had hope that things would get better, that she would get better and she did. What you will read within these pages is ultimately an account of her hope manifested into a reality. As you delve deeper into the book, you will find practical steps that will enable you to explore your inner space and become one with yourself, thus granting you the ability to learn how to best walk freely in all that you have been given.
Download or read book Seeking Jesus in Spite of Yourself written by Nancy Marcinik and published by Tate Publishing. This book was released on 2012-05 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you suffer with pain and anguish from a life of abuse? Do you find yourself tangled in an affair and guilt-ridden by sin? Have you ever felt so alone that your thoughts left you considering the insignificance of your life? Do you often question why God allows you to suffer? If you are searching to be free from the heartbreaking and distressing wounds that are impacting your life, then author Nancy Marcinik'sSeeking Jesus in Spite of Yourselfcan help. This motivational and inspirational guide will help you search for and understand God's blessings in your pain and misery. In this poignant memoir, Nancy takes you through her life of suffering and hardships as she constantly questions the Lord as to why he is allowing such things to happen to her. She also leads you through the darkest hours of her fighting to gain knowledge of her purpose in life. It is on a remarkable and extraordinary trip to the Holy Land that she meets Jesus and finds salvation. While in Israel, God opens Nancy's eyes, shows her all the blessings in her life, and teaches her to let go of the torment of her past and present. Pick upSeeking Jesus in Spite of Yourselftoday and be inspired. After reading Nancy's powerful and compelling story of heartbreak and triumph, you will realize you are not alone or abandoned. Nancy Marcinik lives in a small town in south-central Pennsylvania. She is wonderfully blessed with twin daughters and four grandchildren, all who mean the world to her. She is an aspiring artist and enjoys sketching and painting. Nancy devotes quiet moments with the Lord in her garden, appreciating all the amazing blessings he has graced her with in life. She also savors immense passion in her relationship with Jesus.
Download or read book In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works written by John Lennon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-10-05 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An omnibus edition of two works of John Lennon’s “fascinating…whimsy” (The Sunday Times, London) poetry, prose, and drawings that will “jolt [you] into gusts of laughter” (The Guardian). A humorous compilation of poetry, prose, and artwork from two of John Lennon’s classic works, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works. Known as the Beatles’s Renaissance man, Lennon is widely regarded as one of the most impactful musicians in history. Originally published in 1964, this “quirky, funny collection of stories, poems, and drawings” (The New York Times) is a must-have for John Lennon and Beatles fans everywhere.
Download or read book What I Know For Sure written by Oprah Winfrey and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspirational wisdom Oprah Winfrey shares in her monthly O., The Oprah Magazine column updated, curated, and collected for the first time in a beautiful keepsake book. As a creative force, student of the human heart and soul, and champion of living the life you want, Oprah Winfrey stands alone. Over the years, she has made history with a legendary talk show - the highest-rated program of its kind, launched her own television network, become the nation's only African-American billionaire, and been awarded both an honorary degree by Harvard University and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. From all her experiences, she has gleaned life lessons—which, for fourteen years, she's shared in O, The Oprah Magazine's widely popular "What I Know For Sure" column, a monthly source of inspiration and revelation. Now, for the first time, these thoughtful gems have been revised, updated, and collected in What I Know For Sure, a beautiful cloth bound book with a ribbon marker, packed with insight and revelation from Oprah Winfrey. Organized by theme—joy, resilience, connection, gratitude, possibility, awe, clarity, and power—these essays offer a rare, powerful and intimate glimpse into the heart and mind of one of the world's most extraordinary women—while providing readers a guide to becoming their best selves. Candid, moving, exhilarating, uplifting, and frequently humorous, the words Oprah shares in What I Know For Sure shimmer with the sort of truth that readers will turn to again and again.
Download or read book Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life written by Steve Almond and published by Random House. This book was released on 2010-04-13 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drooling fanatic, n. 1. One who drools in the presence of beloved rock stars. 2. Any of a genus of rock-and-roll wannabes/geeks who walk around with songs constantly ringing in their ears, own more than 3,000 albums, and fall in love with at least one record per week. With a life that’s spanned the phonographic era and the digital age, Steve Almond lives to Rawk. Like you, he’s secretly longed to live the life of a rock star, complete with insane talent, famous friends, and hotel rooms to be trashed. Also like you, he’s content (sort of) to live the life of a rabid fan, one who has converted his unrequited desires into a (sort of) noble obsession. Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life traces Almond’s passion from his earliest (and most wretched) rock criticism to his eventual discovery of a music-crazed soul mate and their subsequent production of two little superfans. Along the way, Almond reflects on the delusional power of songs, the awkward mating habits of drooling fanatics, and why Depression Songs actually make us feel so much better. The book also includes: • sometimes drunken interviews with America’s finest songwriters • a recap of the author’s terrifying visit to Graceland while stoned • a vigorous and credibility-shattering endorsement of Styx’s Paradise Theater • recommendations you will often choose to ignore • a reluctant exegesis of the Toto song “Africa” • obnoxious lists sure to piss off rock critics But wait, there’s more. Readers will also be able to listen to a special free mix designed by the author, available online at www.stevenalmond.com, for the express purpose of eliciting your drool. For those about to rock—we salute you!
