Download or read book On Fire written by John O'Leary and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-03-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the bestselling tradition of Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly and Nick Vujicic’s Life Without Limits comes a rousing 7-step plan for living a life on fire, filled with hope and possibility—from an inspirational speaker who survived a near-fatal fire at the age of nine and now runs a successful business inspiring people all around the world. When John O’Leary was nine years old, he was almost killed in a devastating house fire. With burns on one hundred percent of his body, O’Leary mustered an almost unimaginable amount of inner strength just to survive the ordeal. The insights he gained through this experience and the heroes who stepped into his life to help him through the journey—his family, the medical staff, and total strangers—changed his life. Now he is committed to living life to the fullest and inspiring others to do the same. An incredible and emotionally honest account of triumph over tragedy, On Fire contains O’Leary’s reflections on being that little boy, the life-giving choices made then, and the resulting lessons he learned. O’Leary very clearly shares that without the right people providing the right guidance, at the right time, he never would have made it through those five months in the hospital, let alone the years that followed as he struggled to regain mobility, embrace his story, and ignite clarity of his life’s purpose. On Fire encourages us to seize the power to choose our path and transform our lives from mundane to extraordinary. Once we stop thinking solely on the big moments in our lives, we can begin to focus on those smaller opportunities that tend to pass us by. These are the events—the inflection points in our lives—that can determine how we feel about life now, where we are headed in the future, and how many lives we can impact along the way. We can’t always choose the path we walk, but we can choose how we walk it. Empowering, inspiring, remarkably honest, and heartfelt, O’Leary’s strength and incredible spirit shine through on every page.
Download or read book Books on Fire written by Lucien X. Polastron and published by Lucien X. POLASTRON. This book was released on 2007-08-13 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost as old as the idea of the library is the urge to destroy it. Author Lucien X. Polastron traces the history of this destruction, examining the causes for these disasters, the treasures that have been lost, and where the surviving books, if any, have ended up. Books on Fire received the 2004 Societe des Gens de Lettres Prize for Nonfiction/History in Paris.
Download or read book Hearts on Fire written by Jill Iscol and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2013-01-15 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSPIRING STORIES OF FOURTEEN VISIONARIES WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD—AND A BOLD CALL TO ACTION TO MOTIVATE THE NEXT GENERATION OF LEADERS There’s Amy Lehman, a gutsy single mother who is building a floating health clinic on Lake Tanganyika; Jimmie Briggs, a journalist campaigning to stop violence against girls and women; and Jacob Lief, a young American who founded a school for street children in South Africa. You will discover how Josh Nesbit, Isaac Holeman, and Nadim Mahmud are connecting rural patients to hospitals using cellphone technology, how Susana De Anda is bringing fresh water to the migrant workers in California’s San Joaquin Valley, and how Andeisha Farid is establishing, in the face of war, orphanages for Afghanistan’s child victims of war and poverty. These are just some of the stories that will inspire you. Visionaries don’t wait for others to take action. They step out. They are brave. They walk the walk. And they connect with others in deep and real ways. Jill Iscol’s message is that everyone has the talent and compassion to make the world a better place. Hearts on Fire is a call to action for all of us. Praise for Hearts on Fire “Attention must be paid to these lives and these stories. In Jill Iscol’s capable hands, their stories offer us hope—just when we need it.”—Brian Williams, NBC News “What inspiring stories of people who have made meaningful lives through service and sacrifice—one person at a time. These are our world leaders!”—Richard Gere “Hearts on Fire is one of the most inspiring books I’ve read.”—Tina Brown, editor-in-chief, The Daily Beast and Newsweek “Clear and compelling . . . I know you will be inspired by the visionaries in Hearts on Fire.”—President Bill Clinton “A powerful call to action for each of us to marry passion with purpose and act boldly in the quest for a more just and sustainable world.”—Cheryl Dorsey, president of Echoing Green “Powerful and eloquent, Hearts on Fire is a passionate and infectious invitation to get involved and help make the world a better place.”—Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University “A beautifully appointed treasure box filled with inspiration and possibility. You cannot read this book without wanting to do more.”—Jacqueline Novogratz, founder and CEO of Acumen Fund “A desperately needed antidote for those discouraged by the dysfunctional politics that have left so many on our planet vulnerable and voiceless.”—Billy Shore, founder and executive director of Share Our Strength “Hearts on Fire reminds us that we need to dream again, inspire again, and act again.”—Wes Moore, New York Times bestselling author of The Other Wes Moore “Vivid, down-to-earth, and well-told, Hearts on Fire will comfort and inspire anybody trying to do a little bit to make this world a more connected and compassionate place.”—Ethan Nichtern, founder of The InterDependence Project, and author of One City: A Declaration of Interdependence
Download or read book Every Life Is on Fire written by Jeremy England and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A preeminent physicist unveils a field-defining theory of the origins and purpose of life. Why are we alive? Most things in the universe aren't. And everything that is alive traces back to things that, puzzlingly, weren't. For centuries, the scientific question of life's origins has confounded us. But in Every Life Is on Fire, physicist Jeremy England argues that the answer has been under our noses the whole time, deep within the laws of thermodynamics. England explains how, counterintuitively, the very same forces that tend to tear things apart assembled the first living systems. But how life began isn't just a scientific question. We ask it because we want to know what it really means to be alive. So England, an ordained rabbi, uses his theory to examine how, if at all, science helps us find purpose in a vast and mysterious universe. In the tradition of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, Every Life Is on Fire is a profound testament to how something can come from nothing.
Download or read book Words on Fire written by Jennifer A. Nielsen and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Jennifer A. Nielsen transports readers to a corner of history with this inspiring story of a girl who discovers the strength of her people united in resisting oppression. Danger is never far from Audra's family farm in Lithuania. She always avoids the occupying Russian Cossack soldiers, who insist that everyone must become Russian -- they have banned Lithuanian books, religion, culture, and even the language. But Audra knows her parents are involved in something secret and perilous.In June 1893, when Cossacks arrive abruptly at their door, Audra's parents insist that she flee, taking with her an important package and instructions for where to deliver it. But escape means abandoning her parents to a terrible fate.As Audra embarks on a journey to deliver the mysterious package, she faces unimaginable risks, and soon she becomes caught up in a growing resistance movement. Can joining the underground network of book smugglers give Audra a chance to rescue her parents?
Download or read book Brain On Fire My Month of Madness written by Susannah Cahalan and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2012-11-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'My first serious blackout marked the line between sanity and insanity. Though I would have moments of lucidity over the coming days and weeks, I would never again be the same person ...' Susannah Cahalan was a happy, clever, healthy twenty-four-year old. Then one day she woke up in hospital, with no memory of what had happened or how she had got there. Within weeks, she would be transformed into someone unrecognizable, descending into a state of acute psychosis, undergoing rages and convulsions, hallucinating that her father had murdered his wife; that she could control time with her mind. Everything she had taken for granted about her life, and who she was, was wiped out. Brain on Fire is Susannah's story of her terrifying descent into madness and the desperate hunt for a diagnosis, as, after dozens of tests and scans, baffled doctors concluded she should be confined in a psychiatric ward. It is also the story of how one brilliant man, Syria-born Dr Najar, finally proved - using a simple pen and paper - that Susannah's psychotic behaviour was caused by a rare autoimmune disease attacking her brain. His diagnosis of this little-known condition, thought to have been the real cause of devil-possessions through history, saved her life, and possibly the lives of many others. Cahalan takes readers inside this newly-discovered disease through the progress of her own harrowing journey, piecing it together using memories, journals, hospital videos and records. Written with passionate honesty and intelligence, Brain on Fire is a searingly personal yet universal book, which asks what happens when your identity is suddenly destroyed, and how you get it back. 'With eagle-eye precision and brutal honesty, Susannah Cahalan turns her journalistic gaze on herself as she bravely looks back on one of the most harrowing and unimaginable experiences one could ever face: the loss of mind, body and self. Brain on Fire is a mesmerizing story' -Mira Bartók, New York Times bestselling author of The Memory Palace Susannah Cahalan is a reporter on the New York Post, and the recipient of the 2010 Silurian Award of Excellence in Journalism for Feature Writing. Her writing has also appeared in the New York Times, and is frequently picked up by the Daily Mail, Gawker, Gothamist, AOL and Yahoo among other news aggregrator sites.
Download or read book Girls on Fire written by Robin Wasserman and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-05-17 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An NPR Best Book of the Year • A Buzzfeed Best Book of the Year On Halloween, 1991, a popular high school basketball star ventures into the woods near Battle Creek, Pennsylvania, and disappears. Three days later, he’s found with a bullet in his head and a gun in his hand—a discovery that sends tremors through this conservative community, already unnerved by growing rumors of Satanic worship in the region. In the wake of this incident, bright but lonely Hannah Dexter is befriended by Lacey Champlain, a dark-eyed, Cobain-worshiping bad influence in lip gloss and Doc Martens. The charismatic, seductive Lacey forges a fast, intimate bond with the impressionable Dex, making her over in her own image and unleashing a fierce defiance that neither girl expected. But as Lacey gradually lures Dex away from her safe life into a feverish spiral of obsession, rebellion, and ever greater risk, an unwelcome figure appears on the horizon—and Lacey’s secret history collides with Dex’s worst nightmare. By turns a shocking story of love and violence and an addictive portrait of the intoxication of female friendship, set against the unsettled backdrop of a town gripped by moral panic, Girls on Fire is an unflinching and unforgettable snapshot of girlhood: girls lost and found, girls strong and weak, girls who burn bright and brighter—and some who flicker away.
Download or read book Bird on Fire written by Andrew Ross and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-27 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Phoenix, Arizona is one of America's fastest growing metropolitan regions. It is also its least sustainable one, sprawling over a thousand square miles, with a population of four and a half million, minimal rainfall, scorching heat, and an insatiable appetite for unrestrained growth and unrestricted property rights. In Bird on Fire, eminent social and cultural analyst Andrew Ross focuses on the prospects for sustainability in Phoenix--a city in the bull's eye of global warming--and also the obstacles that stand in the way. Most authors writing on sustainable cities look at places that have excellent public transit systems and relatively high density, such as Portland, Seattle, or New York. But Ross contends that if we can't change the game in fast-growing, low-density cities like Phoenix, the whole movement has a major problem. Drawing on interviews with 200 influential residents--from state legislators, urban planners, developers, and green business advocates to civil rights champions, energy lobbyists, solar entrepreneurs, and community activists--Ross argues that if Phoenix is ever to become sustainable, it will occur more through political and social change than through technological fixes. Ross explains how Arizona's increasingly xenophobic immigration laws, science-denying legislature, and growth-at-all-costs business ethic have perpetuated social injustice and environmental degradation. But he also highlights the positive changes happening in Phoenix, in particular the Gila River Indian Community's successful struggle to win back its water rights, potentially shifting resources away from new housing developments to producing healthy local food for the people of the Phoenix Basin. Ross argues that this victory may serve as a new model for how green democracy can work, redressing the claims of those who have been aggrieved in a way that creates long-term benefits for all. Bird on Fire offers a compelling take on one of the pressing issues of our time--finding pathways to sustainability at a time when governments are dismally failing in their responsibility to address climate change.
Download or read book Your Computer Is on Fire written by Thomas S. Mullaney and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Technology scholars declare an emergency: attention must be paid to the inequality, marginalization, and biases woven into our technological systems. This book sounds an alarm: we can no longer afford to be lulled into complacency by narratives of techno-utopianism, or even techno-neutrality. We should not be reassured by such soothing generalities as "human error," "virtual reality," or "the cloud." We need to realize that nothing is virtual: everything that "happens online," "virtually," or "autonomously" happens offline first, and often involves human beings whose labor is deliberately kept invisible. Everything is IRL. In Your Computer Is on Fire, technology scholars train a spotlight on the inequality, marginalization, and biases woven into our technological systems.
Download or read book Magnificent Vibration written by Rick Springfield and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-05-06 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Horatio Cotton, aka "Bob," has been looking for some combination of spiritual and carnal salvation his entire life. When he steals a self-help book called Magnificent Vibration: Discover Your True Purpose from a bookstore and calls the number scrawled inside the front cover, he discovers that he has a direct line to God, and that God likes to mess with him. Soon enough Bob finds a partner in Alice, a surprisingly sexy and good-humored nun, and they travel from America to Scotland and try to answer questions, such as Why are we here? What is love? Is there a Loch Ness monster? Does God send text messages? MAGNIFICENT VIBRATION is smart, savvy, rambunctious, and hilarious novel, about the biggest questions that one man - or mankind - has ever asked"--
Download or read book When We Were on Fire written by Addie Zierman and published by Convergent Books. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the strange, us-versus-them Christian subculture of the 1990s, a person’s faith was measured by how many WWJD bracelets she wore and whether he had kissed dating goodbye. Evangelical poster child Addie Zierman wore three bracelets asking what Jesus would do. She also led two Bible studies and listened exclusively to Christian music. She was on fire for God and unaware that the flame was dwindling—until it burned out. Addie chronicles her journey through church culture and first love, and her entrance—unprepared and angry—into marriage. When she drops out of church and very nearly her marriage as well, it is on a sea of tequila and depression. She isn’t sure if she’ll ever go back. When We Were on Fire is a funny, heartbreaking story of untangling oneself from what is expected to arrive at faith that is not bound by tradition or current church fashion. Addie looks for what lasts when nothing else seems worth keeping. It’s a story for doubters, cynics, and anyone who has felt alone in church.
Download or read book Whole World on Fire written by Lynn Eden and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whole World on Fire focuses on a technical riddle wrapped in an organizational mystery: How and why, for more than half a century, did the U.S. government fail to predict nuclear fire damage as it drew up plans to fight strategic nuclear war?U.S. bombing in World War II caused massive fire damage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but later war plans took account only of damage from blast; they completely ignored damage from atomic firestorms. Recently a small group of researchers has shown that for modern nuclear weapons the destructiveness and lethality of nuclear mass fire often--and predictably--greatly exceeds that of nuclear blast. This has major implications for defense policy: the U.S. government has underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons, Lynn Eden finds, and built far more warheads, and far more destructive warheads, than it needed for the Pentagon's war-planning purposes. How could this have happened? The answer lies in how organizations frame the problems they try to solve. In a narrative grounded in organization theory, science and technology studies, and primary historical sources (including declassified documents and interviews), Eden explains how the U.S. Air Force's doctrine of precision bombing led to the development of very good predictions of nuclear blast--a significant achievement--but for many years to no development of organizational knowledge about nuclear fire. Expert communities outside the military reinforced this disparity in organizational capability to predict blast damage but not fire damage. Yet some innovation occurred, and predictions of fire damage were nearly incorporated into nuclear war planning in the early 1990s. The author explains how such a dramatic change almost happened, and why it did not. Whole World on Fire shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't do well, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences. In a sweeping conclusion, Eden shows the implications of the analysis for understanding such things as the sinking of the Titanic, the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and the poor fireproofing in the World Trade Center.
Download or read book Burning Man written by Jennifer Raiser and published by . This book was released on 2016-08 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authorized collection of more than two hundred color photos showcases the sculptures, art, stories, and interviews from the annual celebration of artistic expression in Nevada's barren Black Rock Desert
Download or read book Set on Fire written by Taurus Montgomery and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set on fire is the inspiring and thrilling autobiography of Taurus Montgomery. It is the journey of a young man finding his life's purpose in the midst of his pain. It is a story of devastation and destiny. Of lust and love. Of anger and forgiveness. Hurt and humor. Good verses evil. And choosing fear over faith. It is a story of how one decision can give you the life you've always wanted.
Download or read book On Fire written by Larry Brown and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2018-07-03 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOW WITH A FOREWORD BY RON RASH AND AN APPRECIATION BY DWIGHT GARNER “One of the finest books I know about blue-collar work in America, its rewards and frustrations . . . If you are among the tens of millions who have never read Brown, this is a perfect introduction.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times On January 6, 1990, after seventeen years on the job, Larry Brown quit the Oxford, Mississippi, fire department to try writing full-time. In On Fire, he looks back on his life as a firefighter. His unflinching accounts of daily trauma—from the blistering heat of burning trailer homes to the crunch of broken glass at crash scenes—catapult readers into the hard reality that drove this award-winning novelist. As a firefighter and fireman-turned-author, as husband and hunter, and as father and son, Brown offers insights into the choices men face pursuing their life’s work. And, in the forthright style we expect from Larry Brown, his narrative builds to the explanation of how one man who regularly confronted death began to burn with the desire to write about life.
Download or read book City on Fire written by Garth Risk Hallberg and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 1109 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A mystery that reverberates through families, friendships, and the corridors of power in New York and "captures the city’s dangerous, magnetic allure" (The New York Times). • Streaming now on Apple TV+ “As close to a great American novel as this century has produced.” —Stephen King New York City, 1976. Meet Regan and William Hamilton-Sweeney, estranged heirs to one of the city’s great fortunes; Keith and Mercer, the men who, for better or worse, love them; Charlie and Samantha, two suburban teenagers seduced by downtown’s punk scene; an obsessive magazine reporter and his idealistic neighbor—and the detective trying to figure out what any of them have to do with a shooting in Central Park on New Year’s Eve. When the blackout of July 13, 1977, plunges this world into darkness, each of these lives will be changed forever. City on Fire is an unforgettable novel about love and betrayal and forgiveness, about art and truth and rock ’n’ roll: about what people need from each other in order to live—and about what makes the living worth doing in the first place.
Download or read book Night on Fire written by Ronald Kidd and published by Albert Whitman & Company. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2016-2017 Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award Master List 2016 Best Children's Book of the Year—Historical Fiction List, Bank Street College 2016 Paterson Prize for Books for Young People Grades 4-6 2017-2018 Indiana Young Hoosier Book Award Master List Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2016—CBC/NCSS 2018-2019 Volunteer State Book Award Middle School List STARRED REVIEW! "Kidd writes with insight and restraint, creating a richly layered opus that hits every note to perfection...Beautifully written and earnestly delivered, the novel rolls to an inexorable, stunning conclusion readers won't soon forget."—Kirkus Reviews starred review STARRED REVIEW! "Along the way, Billie comes to grips with her own prejudices, inherited from her parents, in a way that is both lyrical and honest. In a year in which news events have made it clear that the civil rights movement is far from over, titles like Kidd's have special resonance. His focus on a lesser-known historical event provides a window into the past..."—Booklist starred review Thirteen-year-old Billie Sims doesn't think her hometown of Anniston, Alabama, should be segregated, but few of the town's residents share her opinion. As equality spreads across the country and the Civil Rights Movement gathers momentum, Billie can't help but feel stuck—and helpless—in a stubborn town too set in its ways to realize that the world is passing it by. So when Billie learns that the Freedom Riders, a group of peace activists riding interstate buses to protest segregation, will be traveling through Anniston on their way to Montgomery, she thinks that maybe change is finally coming and her quiet little town will shed itself of its antiquated views. But what starts as a series of angry grumbles soon turns to brutality as Anniston residents show just how deep their racism runs. The Freedom Riders will resume their ride to Montgomery, and Billie is now faced with a choice: stand idly by in silence or take a stand for what she believes in. Through her own decisions and actions and a few unlikely friendships, Billie is about to come to grips with the deep-seated prejudice of those she once thought she knew, and with her own inherent racism that she didn't even know she had.
