This work invites us to enter the world of mementos, as to their significance and hidden meaning. By way of example, the author describes ten mementos from his own desk. His "first reflections" describe the object and the immediate story behind them. In his "second reflections," the author ventures into the philosophic and metaphysical domains to consider each memento's meaning. The ordinary world of mementos may not give us much pause during the course of the day. Yet they are in front of us and telling us something important about ourselves and our lives You are invited to take a journey into this world of mimentos, so you may begin to explore the meaning of yours, and discover what is being said to you.

When one of the century's greatest floods devastated her town, Robin Silverman went looking for the personal peace she new she and tens of thousands of others would need to restore their shattered lives. In her search, she discovered the Ten Gifts: powerful inner resources that have been within us since birth-resources that can transform crisis, create opportunity, and deliver lasting fulfillment. The gifts have familiar names: faith, love, dreams, courage, unity, joy, trust, character, thanks, and intention. Using stories of real people, Silverman beautifully illustrates new and exciting ways your gifts can be defined and used to provide the security you want when you need it the most. In addition, she offers practical exercises so you can put the gifts to work for yourself. For anyone wanting more satisfaction from life, The Ten Gifts lights the path to personal peace.

Richard Nixon, Vice President/White House Action Officer, and Allen Dulles CIA Director, met on a regular basis over the next six years. During that time it seemed objectives and ideas, such as the mind control experiment MKUltra, which involved soldiers, civilians, drugs, and conditioning techniques, associated with the CIA became extremely farfetched.

Nautilus Book Awards Winners for 2007 (category: Self-Help/Psychology/ Personal Growth) "Like many people, Kathleen Hall found that despite great success and material wealth, she had yet to identify purpose, meaning, and balance in her work and her life. She left her Wall Street firm and devoted herself to understanding the relationships between mind, body, and spirit, and between professional and personal fulfillment. Since then, she has studied with great spiritual leaders including the Dalai Lama, Bishop Desmond Tutu, and the exiled Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh. She has also learned from medical experts like Dr. Dean Ornish of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute and Dr. Herbert Benson at the Harvard Mind-Body Institute. Inspired by those diverse influences, Dr. Hall has written A Life in Balance, a guided journey to joy, peace, and an intentional life grounded in the four roots of the SELF: * Serenity. Find what brings us peace, and channel it into everything we do * Exercise. Align the body with energy and health through walking, yoga, martial arts, and more * Love. Build community and relationships that heal others as well as ourselves * Food. Pay attention not just to what we eat, but to what we experience through all our senses Our lives pull us in many different directions; to find happiness, we must first create balance. Filled with wit, wisdom, and compassion, A Life in Balance will help any reader identify and stay true to his or her authentic self."

Christopher Reich electrified readers with Numbered Account and The Runner, his first two international thrillers. Now the New York Times bestselling author whose work has been called “gripping” (Chicago Tribune), “chilling” (The Denver Post), “wonderful” (The New York Times Book Review), ratchets up the stakes in an ingeniously plotted story of nerve-jangling intrigue and hot-wired suspense. Using today’s cutthroat global economy as a backdrop, The First Billion explodes into a breakneck tale of betrayal, revenge, and redemption... John “Jett” Gavallan is a former fighter pilot, now the high-flying CEO of Black Jet Securities, an investment firm that earned its first billion before the techno dream crashed and burned. Poised for an offering crucial to his company’s survival, Gavallan is banking on the riskiest gamble of his dazzling career. In exactly six days, he will take Mercury Broadband, Russia’s leading media company, public on the New York Stock Exchange. But rumors of fraud have suddenly surfaced that could send the deal south. Gavallan makes a preemptive strike by dispatching his number-two man--fellow Desert Storm fighter pilot Grafton Byrnes--to Moscow to penetrate the shadowy Russian multinational. When Byrnes fails to return, Gavallan fears the worst. But the truth is even more diabolical than he can imagine. Plunging into a desperate search for his best friend, the renegade top gun is suddenly fighting a different kind of war, where there is no safe harbor and no one he can trust. Not Konstantin Kirov, the elusive head of Mercury Broadband who may not be what he seems. Not the bankers and traders Gavallan does business with every day. Not the exotic beauty who has told him all her deepest secrets--except one. Suddenly Jett finds himself trapped in a conspiracy that could shatter the delicate balance between nations--and plunge the global economy into chaos. Hunted by the F.B.I. and a band of elite killers, Jett races from Palm Beach to Zurich to Moscow in a desperate search for answers. But for this brave ex-commando haunted by visions of war, the truth comes at a terrible price. With Mercury rising and the hours ticking down, he is moving closer to a place where murder and revenge are the currency of choice...and where the first billion is the ultimate insider secret--and the deadliest obsession of all. With breakneck plotting, stunning realism, and a sense of danger that keeps the heart racing, The First Billion is a knockout of a novel that will linger long after the final shocking twist is revealed.

“Madness can be seen as an intuitive probing into true reality.”–R. D. Laing Women were, among others, misdiagnosed as insane by alienists in the 1800s. My plot will involve a female child who has been institutionalized in 1887, but the aunt of this child comes to Clara Foltz to say she believes the child was admitted to the Stockton State Insane Asylum (the first such institution in California) because she knew about a murder that was committed on her wealthy parent’s estate. Clara solicits the help of Elizabeth Packard, the crusading (real) activist who was committed in the 1860s by her husband. It took Mrs. Packard three years to earn her freedom. Together with Ah Toy, they contrive a way to go undercover to gain admittance into the Women’s Building at Stockton to find the child and determine what happened to have her institutionalized. Children were regularly institutionalized, as were the elderly and the feeble-minded. Five of these characters will be readers who won a raffle held by the author. They will be suspect asylum patients inside the Stockton State Insane Asylum, the first public mental hospital in California. The author will be working with each reader, using their photos, descriptions and “personal idiosyncrasies” to craft the characters used in his mystery. BookLife Prize, 2018: ​​"A thrilling adventure, perfect for whodunit fans and historical fiction buffs." Kirkus Review: "An entertaining mix of fact, fiction, feminism, and the occult."

Longarm heads to a town called Hardwater to find out why the dying is easy… When hard-livin’ bully Cracker Marner finally ran out of luck, dying came easy. A few shots to the chest by a smaller man with a bigger hat. That’s all anyone at the saloon remembers about the killer. Then in early spring, another stranger bellies up to the same bar and shoots the barkeep at point-blank range…just because he couldn’t “remember.” Now the problem is federal—with Marshal Custis Long on the case. There are two places Longarm can look for answers: Cracker’s hot-tempered widow and his ma. But the hardest question still isn’t who could’ve wanted this unpopular man dead, it’s who could’ve wanted him alive…