Download or read book Leaving Isn t the Hardest Thing written by Lauren Hough and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • "A memoir in essays about so many things—growing up in an abusive cult, coming of age as a lesbian in the military, forced out by homophobia, living on the margins as a working class woman and what it’s like to grow into the person you are meant to be. Hough’s writing will break your heart." —Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist Searing and extremely personal essays, shot through with the darkest elements America can manifest, while discovering light and humor in unexpected corners. As an adult, Lauren Hough has had many identities: an airman in the U.S. Air Force, a cable guy, a bouncer at a gay club. As a child, however, she had none. Growing up as a member of the infamous cult The Children of God, Hough had her own self robbed from her. The cult took her all over the globe--to Germany, Japan, Texas, Chile—but it wasn't until she finally left for good that Lauren understood she could have a life beyond "The Family." Along the way, she's loaded up her car and started over, trading one life for the next. She's taken pilgrimages to the sights of her youth, been kept in solitary confinement, dated a lot of women, dabbled in drugs, and eventually found herself as what she always wanted to be: a writer. Here, as she sweeps through the underbelly of America—relying on friends, family, and strangers alike—she begins to excavate a new identity even as her past continues to trail her and color her world, relationships, and perceptions of self. At once razor-sharp, profoundly brave, and often very, very funny, the essays in Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing interrogate our notions of ecstasy, queerness, and what it means to live freely. Each piece is a reckoning: of survival, identity, and how to reclaim one's past when carving out a future. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL

Download or read book The Best and Hardest Thing written by Pat Brisson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-05-13 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifteen-year-old Molly Biden has always been studious, dependable, some might even say saintly. And she?s sick of herself. So when she spots mysterious bad boy Grady Dillon, she devises a plan to make herself over into someone new, someone who will attract Grady?s attention. She succeeds?but a little too well. When Molly discovers she?s pregnant, she?s forced to make the hardest choice of her life. This addictively readable portrayal of Molly?s struggle to accept her pregnancy and the fact that her life will never be the same is told entirely in poetry, from sonnets to haiku.

Download or read book The Hardest Thing in This World written by Nicole Eva Fraser and published by . This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sexy, smart-mouthed Melody Sawyer is an underachiever, a home health care nurse with good intentions and a chip on her shoulder. Her troubled daughter Renee recently dropped dead at 24, but Renee's ghost keeps popping in on the family. And her married daughter, Kayla, has been deep in a clandestine affair with pro baseball player Baron Lee Presley since she was 16. Revolving around family and the issues that come with living in a family with mental illness, the story follows the Sawyer women through birth, coming of age, and dealing with the death--and ghosts--of loved ones.--Publisher.

Download or read book The Hard Thing About Hard Things written by Ben Horowitz and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley's most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, offers essential advice on building and running a startup—practical wisdom for managing the toughest problems business school doesn’t cover, based on his popular ben’s blog. While many people talk about how great it is to start a business, very few are honest about how difficult it is to run one. Ben Horowitz analyzes the problems that confront leaders every day, sharing the insights he’s gained developing, managing, selling, buying, investing in, and supervising technology companies. A lifelong rap fanatic, he amplifies business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs, telling it straight about everything from firing friends to poaching competitors, cultivating and sustaining a CEO mentality to knowing the right time to cash in. Filled with his trademark humor and straight talk, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures, drawing from Horowitz's personal and often humbling experiences.

Download or read book The Hardest Fall written by Ella Maise and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-10-27 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the game of love you can't afford to drop the ball... Zoe’s always been shy. At college, to try to help her, her friend dares her to do the craziest thing she can think of… kiss a random guy. She follows Dylan into a room she thinks is a classroom and ends up seeing a little too much of him. She can hardly kiss him now… not when after their embarrassing encounter and certainly not after he tells her he has a girlfriend. But when he finds out about the dare, the two make a pact… if they ever cross paths again – and they’re both single – they’ll kiss. Two years later, fate intervenes, and they end up as accidental roommates. Now Zoe’s seeing a lot more of Dylan than she bargained for and it’s even harder to resist peeking the second time round.

Download or read book The Back Passage written by James Lear and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A seaside village, an English country house, a family of wealthy eccentrics and their equally peculiar servants, a determined detective - all the ingredients are here for a cozy Agatha Christie-style whodunnit. But wait - Edward `Mitch' Mitchell is no Hercule Poirot, and The Back Passage is no Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Mitch is a handsome, insatiable 22-year-old hunk who never lets a clue stand in the way of a steamy encounter, whether it's with the local constabulary, or his schoolmate and fellow athlete Boy Morgan, who becomes his Watson.

Download or read book The Secret Tunnel written by James Lear and published by Cleis Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Flying Scotsman, one of the world’s legendary train journeys, has many attractions for Edward “Mitch” Mitchell, from the obliging porter to the mean guard to a troop of rough-and-ready soldiers in easily lifted kilts in the third-class carriage. But Mitch may not have time for them all before they arrive in London. When the train gets stuck in a tunnel, a dead body is found in the first-class toilet! Ever-ready Mitch decides to intervene and solve the crime. With his new Belgian sidekick Benoit, he pursues the killer through a crazy kaleidoscope of movie stars, drug dealers, royal scandals, and queens of every description. Can he finger the villain before the villain fingers him? What is the connection between Buckingham Palace and a bunch of backstreet pornographers? And what is the mystery of the secret tunnel? Mitch intends to go all the way to figure it all out.

Download or read book Different Seasons written by Stephen King and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-01-01 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes the stories “The Body” and “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”—set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine A “hypnotic” (The New York Times Book Review) collection of four novellas—including the inspirations behind the films Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption—from Stephen King, bound together by the changing of seasons, each taking on the theme of a journey with strikingly different tones and characters. This gripping collection begins with “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption,” in which an unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge—the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award-nominee The Shawshank Redemption. Next is “Apt Pupil,” the inspiration for the film of the same name about top high school student Todd Bowden and his obsession with the dark and deadly past of an older man in town. In “The Body,” four rambunctious young boys plunge through the façade of a small town and come face-to-face with life, death, and intimations of their own mortality. This novella became the movie Stand By Me. Finally, a disgraced woman is determined to triumph over death in “The Breathing Method.” “The wondrous readability of his work, as well as the instant sense of communication with his characters, are what make Stephen King the consummate storyteller that he is,” hailed the Houston Chronicle about Different Seasons.

Download or read book The Hardest Thing written by James Lear and published by Cleis Press. This book was released on 2013-06-11 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Killing is easy. Love is... The Hardest Thing James Lear does Lee Child Once a major in the U.S. Army, Dan Stagg fell afoul of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. In his late 30s, tall, and muscular, Dan is prone to violence, always upholding what he views as justice. He’s offered a great deal of money to protect the young male “secretary” of a powerful real estate broker. The vain, shallow--but most of all hot--young man’s idea of protection includes sex. Dan quickly realizes something strange is going on: he’s being used as a shield for a much more sinister operation and must chose between easy money and sex or the ideals that he embodied in the Army. Why should he do the right thing--particularly when the army betrayed him? The Hardest Thing is a sexy gay mystery as only James Lear can write it: filled with lots of gay sexual encounters, romance, sweat, violence, and conspiracy.

Download or read book Author In Progress written by Therese Walsh and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Empower Your Writing Through Craft and Community! Writing can be a lonely profession plagued by blind stumbles, writer's block, and despair--but it doesn't have to be. Written by members of the popular Writer Unboxed website, Author in Progress is filled with practical, candid essays to help you reach the next rung on the publishing ladder. By tracking your creative journey from first draft to completion and beyond, you can improve your craft, find your community, and overcome the mental barriers that stand in the way of success. Author in Progress is the perfect no-nonsense guide for excelling at every step of the novel-writing process, from setting goals, researching, and drafting to giving and receiving critiques, polishing prose, and seeking publication. You'll love Author in Progress if... • You're an aspiring novelist working on your first book. • You're an experienced veteran looking for ways to enhance your career and connect with your writing community. • You've finished your first draft and want to know the next steps. • You're seeking clear, effective advice about publication-from professionals who are "down in the trenches" every day. What's Inside Author in Progress features: • More than 50 essays from best-selling authors, editors, and industry leaders on a variety of writing and publishing topics. • Advice on writing first drafts, conducting research, building and fostering community, seeking critique, revising, and getting published. • An encouraging approach to the writing and publishing process, from authors who've walked this path.

Download or read book The Hardest Thing to Do written by Penelope Wilcock and published by Lion Fiction. This book was released on 2015-07-17 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This latest in Wilcock’s The Hawk and the Dove series takes readers into the world of a fourteenth-century monastery struggling to forgive an old enemy seeking refuge. The first of three sequels to the celebrated The Hawk and the Dove trilogy takes place one year after the end of the third book, in the early fourteenth century. A peaceful monastery is enjoying its new abbot, who is taking the place of Father Peregrine, when an old enemy arrives seeking refuge. Reluctantly taking in Prior William, the upended community must address old fears and bitterness while warily seeking reconciliation. But can they really trust Prior William? In her fourth book in the series, Penelope Wilcock wrestles with the difficulties of forgiveness and the cautions of building trust. Taking the form of journal entries, her story will delight the imaginations of readers captivated by a time and place far distant from our current world. Her timeless themes, however, will challenge our prejudices today as we, along with her characters, are forced to ask ourselves, “What is the hardest thing to do?”

Download or read book War Stories written by Andrew Liptak and published by Apex Publications. This book was released on with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In War Stories: New Military Science Fiction, editors Andrew Liptak and Jaym Gates collects short stories by science fiction and fantasy authors dealing with the effects of war prior, during, and after battle to soldiers and their families. War is everywhere. Not only among the firefights, in the sweat dripping from heavy armor and the clenching grip on your weapon, but also wedging itself deep into families, infiltrating our love letters, hovering in the air above our heads. It's in our dreams and our text messages. At times it roars with adrenaline, while at others it slips in silently so it can sit beside you until you forget it's there. Join Joe Haldeman, Linda Nagata, Karin Lowachee, Ken Liu, Jay Posey, and more as they take you on a tour of the battlefields, from those hurtling through space in spaceships and winding along trails deep in the jungle with bullets whizzing overhead, to the ones hiding behind calm smiles, waiting patiently to reveal itself in those quiet moments when we feel safest. War Stories brings us 23 stories of the impacts of war, showcasing the systems, combat, armor, and aftermath without condemnation or glorification. Instead, War Stories reveals the truth. War is what we are. Table of Contents: Foreword -- Gregory Drobny Graves -- Joe Haldeman Part 1: Wartime Systems In the Loop -- Ken Liu Ghost Girl -- Rich Larson The Radio -- Susan Jane Bigelow Contractual Obligation -- James L. Cambias The Wasp Keepers -- Mark Jacobsen Non-Standard Deviation -- Richard Dansky Part 2: Combat All You Need -- Mike Sizemore The Valkyrie -- Maurice Broaddus One Million Lira -- Thoraiya Dyer Invincible -- Jay Posey Light and Shadow -- Linda Nagata Part 3: Armored Force Warhosts -- Yoon Ha Lee Suits -- James Sutter Mission. Suit. Self. -- Jake Kerr In Loco -- Carlos Orsi Part 4: Aftermath War Dog -- Mike Barretta Coming Home -- Janine Spendlove Where We Would End a War -- F. Brett Cox Black Butterfly -- T.C. McCarthy Always the Stars and the Void Between -- Nerine Dorman Enemy States -- Karin Lowachee War 3.01 -- Keith Brooke Cover art by Galen Dara.

Download or read book Habits of the Household written by Justin Whitmel Earley and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover simple habits and easy-to-implement daily rhythms that will help you find meaning beyond the chaos of family life as you create a home where kids and parents alike practice how to love God and each other. You long for tender moments with your children--but do you ever find yourself too busy to stop, make eye contact, and say something you really mean? Daily habits are powerful ways to shape the heart--but do you find yourself giving in to screen time just to get through the day? You want to parent with purpose--but do you know how to start? Award-winning author and father of four Justin Whitmel Earley understands the tension between how you long to parent and what your daily life actually looks like. In Habits of the Household, Earley gives you the tools you need to create structure--from mealtimes to bedtimes--that free you to parent toddlers, kids, and teens with purpose. Learn how to: Develop a bedtime liturgy to settle your little ones and ground them in God's love Discover a new framework for discipline as discipleship Acquire simple practices for more regular and meaningful family mealtimes Open your eyes to the spirituality of parenting, seeing small moments as big opportunities for spiritual formation Develop a custom age chart for your family to more intentionally plan your shared years under the same roof Each chapter in Habits of the Household ends with practical patterns, prayers, or liturgies that your family can put into practice right away. As you create liberating rhythms around your everyday routines, you will find your family has a greater sense of peace and purpose as your home becomes a place where, above all, you learn how to love.

Download or read book The Hardest Thing I ll Ever Do written by Linda Guebert and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2013-05-22 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Hardest Thing I'll Ever Do, Linda Guebert shares her personal grief journey following the sudden death of her husband only nine months after they were married. At times heartrending, occasionally funny, her compelling account moves us through sorrow, anger and despair to renewed hope and commitment to life. A powerful story of healing and personal growth, The Hardest Thing I'll Ever Do is a valuable resource for those who have suffered the loss of someone they love – and for those who strive to understand grief and offer support to others.

Download or read book Tell Me More written by Kelly Corrigan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2018-01-09 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A story-driven collection of essays on the twelve powerful phrases we use to sustain our relationships, from the bestselling author of Glitter and Glue and The Middle Place “Kelly Corrigan takes on all the big, difficult questions here, with great warmth and courage.”—Glennon Doyle NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLE AND BUSTLE It’s a crazy idea: trying to name the phrases that make love and connection possible. But that’s just what Kelly Corrigan has set out to do here. In her New York Times bestselling memoirs, Corrigan distilled our core relationships to their essences, showcasing a warm, easy storytelling style. Now, in Tell Me More, she’s back with a deeply personal, unfailingly honest, and often hilarious examination of the essential phrases that turn the wheel of life. In “I Don’t Know,” Corrigan wrestles to make peace with uncertainty, whether it’s over invitations that never came or a friend’s agonizing infertility. In “No,” she admires her mother’s ability to set boundaries and her liberating willingness to be unpopular. In “Tell Me More,” a facialist named Tish teaches her something important about listening. And in “I Was Wrong,” she comes clean about her disastrous role in a family fight—and explains why saying sorry may not be enough. With refreshing candor, a deep well of empathy, and her signature desire to understand “the thing behind the thing,” Corrigan swings between meditations on life with a preoccupied husband and two mercurial teenage daughters to profound observations on love and loss. With the streetwise, ever-relatable voice that defines Corrigan’s work, Tell Me More is a moving and meaningful take on the power of the right words at the right moment to change everything. Praise for Tell Me More “It is such a comfort just knowing that Kelly Corrigan exists: she is somehow both wise and self-deprecating; funny but unafraid of pain; frank but gentle. She is the sister/mother/best friend we all wish we could have—and because of this big-hearted book, we all get to.”—Ariel Levy, author of The Rules Do Not Apply “With full-bodied humor and radical sensitivity, Kelly Corrigan transforms the mundane pain of life into a necessary spiritual text of sorts, one that reminds us that we have the right to grieve but the obligation to be grateful. This book will remind you that you are human—and of the fragile loveliness of being so.”—Lena Dunham

Download or read book The Hardest Thing Was To Continue Loving You written by Hemant Tigga and published by Educreation Publishing. This book was released on with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's not a one-sided love story, it's not a predictable story, it's a completely new ingredient and I assure you would have never heard such a story. Rahul the main protagonist always finds Sonali mysterious; sometimes he would think she must be a ghost. However, he is passionately in love with her he only gets a part of her; a part that is seeking love or attention -a part that is not even sure what exactly it wants and a part of her has a disturbing personal history that went deeper into her experimental sexual nature and gets darker as it unfolds, also the bisexual side. A hidden part which has traces in their past lives, and he gets introduced to it by a chance encounter with Kusum which later comprehended as a plan of destiny. He is intensely curious to know his past for which he must embark a personal spiritual journey- which will be to invoke his hidden intuition power, in this journey he is helped by Kusum. But why Kusum is helping him? And how his finding of past is going to shape his relations with both of them?

Download or read book So What Was the Hardest Thing You Have Ever Done written by Kevin B. Jones and published by Dorrance Publishing. This book was released on 2024-03-27 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2021, author Kevin B. Jones was diagnosed with cancer. His friend Billy told him, “Let the medical team take care of the cancer; you take care of Kevin.” Kevin runs ultra-marathons. Could he run through cancer? This is the tale of Kevin doing what Kevin does–living each day, running each day, as cancer and the treatment wrought their changes. This celebrates those who shared their lives and love with him in the most brutal race he ever attempted. About the Author Kevin B. Jones is a botany professor at Charleston Southern University. He retired from the Navy in 1995. He is an educator, runner, crazy cat person, gardener, and occasional writer. He lives near Charleston, South Carolina, with his wife, Anne Jones, and cat-persons Tigger, Spider, and Samwise.