"Provoked by a gang leader into the random shooting of an innocent guy, fourteen-year-old Ray faces a forty-year sentence in Chicago's infamous prison system"--Back cover.

Michael Irwin is an author and former prisoner who was spent six years in prison for drug trafficking. Whilst incarcerated Michael dedicated himself to academia and rehabilitation. He also wrote a journal detailing his daily life and progress. This book provides a fascinating glimpse into the everyday world of prisons, something that the most of us would never experience in our lives. It also shows the journey of how a man left with nothing, turned his life around and became an absolute success. Acknowledgements: Mark Van Eyssen, James Mehigan, Ruth McFarlane, Christopher Uggen, Bill Davies, Gary Irwin, Keir Irwin-Rogers, Steve Hall, Paula Skidmore & David Whyte.

If you're nearing forty and your husband suddenly dumps you after ten years of marriage, and he has the gall to do it over the phone, it's bound to come as a blow. How ever will Christine get used to being on her own? She has to develop a whole new rhythm to her life, and boost her tattered self-confidence as she starts life afresh.

More than four hundred "over 40" women share their views on the joys and challenges of life after 40, including some outrageous 40th birthday stories and Liz Curtis Higgs' own hilarious observations of life on the other side of 40. It's all original and mostly true! Not to mention, very funny.

In 1962, Pete Best, the then drummer of The Beatles, was replaced by Ringo Starr and the reconstituted band recorded its first single in Liverpool. A legend was born: John, Paul, George, and Ringo?"collectively the most popular and influential rock and roll band that the world has ever seen. The Beatles came to define their era in a way that no other band or performer has managed. The band only produced music between 1962 and 1970, but in the course of their eight remarkable years, they produced a dozen astonishing albums of original, mainly self-composed music. At least two of those albums invariably make every "all time great" chart list: Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Their success was truly global and during their heyday and for some years after, they were four of the most recognizable faces on the planet; arguably, they remain so. This British rock and roll band took the world by storm in the 60s and their timeless music remains popular today. The accompanying DVD features a mixture of interviews with the band, reportage of the travels of the "Fab Four," press conferences, and interviews with them and their entourage from 1963 onward. It also includes an extra feature, a documentary on John's "We're more popular than Jesus" remark and its aftermath.

At once funny, wistful and unsettling, Sum is a dazzling exploration of unexpected afterlives—each presented as a vignette that offers a stunning lens through which to see ourselves in the here and now. In one afterlife, you may find that God is the size of a microbe and unaware of your existence. In another version, you work as a background character in other people’s dreams. Or you may find that God is a married couple, or that the universe is running backward, or that you are forced to live out your afterlife with annoying versions of who you could have been. With a probing imagination and deep understanding of the human condition, acclaimed neuroscientist David Eagleman offers wonderfully imagined tales that shine a brilliant light on the here and now.

This intimate, affectionate portrait of Pope John Paul II by his longtime secretary and confidant reveals fascinating new details about the opinions, hopes, fears, and dramatic life of this public man. “I had accompanied him for almost forty years: twelve in Kraków and then twenty-seven in Rome. I was always with him, always at his side. Now, in the moment of death, he’d gone on alone. . . .And now? Who is accompanying him on the other side?” —From A Life with Karol Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz worked side by side with Pope John Paul II for almost forty years, enjoying unique access to both the public and private man. In A life with Karol, he provides a close-up glimpse into the Pope’s life and the critical events of his papacy. Dziwisz was sitting next to the Pope during the assassination attempt in 1981. He recounts the Pope's reaction to 9/11, describing his thoughts and feelings on that day. And the Cardinal’s moving description of the Pope’s haunting memories of World War II uncovers the roots of the pontiff’s intense opposition to George W. Bush’s war on Iraq. The two men shared moments of fun and spontaneity as well. Dziwisz writes about the times the Pope would slip out of the Vatican, wearing a Panama hat, to stroll the streets of Rome, and he describes the clandestine ski and hiking trips the pair made to escape the Vatican. His firsthand account of the Pope’s last years also reveals that John Paul II considered resigning. These stories and others lend added poignancy to Dziwisz’s extraordinary portrayal of the Pope’s courage and calmness during his final illness.

We all seem to experience a moment in our life that brings back some sort of memory that makes you refl ect on that time. This book is that type of book where I refl ect on moments in my life that I felt were important to write about. Life has so many choices or decisions that sometimes you think back about some of them that were made or were not made. Think back to your favorite song, place to go, or just things you used to do when you were growing up. How does it make you feel when you think about them now? Think about the first time you had to deal with adversity where things didn't go so well. That is what life is all about and I wanted to put mine in a book. I am just like everyone in this world trying to make a difference in one way or another. When you read this book, realize that we all have a story to tell, you just have to be willing to tell it. We tell our stories everyday whether it is at the dinner table, out with friends, or to help your children deal with the growing pains as you did years earlier. What I hope you take from this story is that you can learn, laugh, or just relate from some of my experiences.

Winner, 2016 the John Lyman Book Award, sponsored by the North American Society for Oceanic History. During Daniel O. Killman’s more than fifty years at sea, he was shipwrecked off Coos Bay, discovered gold in Alaska, was dismasted in a hurricane near Fiji, lost a rudder en route to Adelaide, had run-ins with bureaucrats, officials, and seamen, and found himself in court facing charges of murder, all the while remaining in impeccable standing with the owners of his vessels. His thrilling life at sea during the last decades of sailing ships and the emergence of steam vessels in the Pacific is chronicled in Forty Years Master: A Life in Sail and Steam. Edited and annotated nearly forty years after Killman’s death by prominent Pacific Coast maritime historians John Lyman and Harold D. Huycke Jr., Killman’s memoir has been compiled by Rebecca Huycke Ellison from her father’s papers. Now with an introduction by maritime scholar Brian J. Rouleau and an afterword by David Hull, Killman’s rollicking narrative of storms, surly mates, bustling ports, and the business of navigating the high seas will entertain and inform scholars, students, and general readers interested in nautical and maritime history, late nineteenth–early twentieth century trade and commerce, and West Coast/trans-Pacific maritime history.