Books
Hauling It To The Curb : Ken Montrose
Hauling It To The Curb: Cleaning Up Your Life In Early Recovery
This 160 page workbook helps newcomers explore their denial, deal with early recovery, and work the first five steps of AA/NA. It offers practical advice and thought-provoking exercises, while telling the story of a young couple in early recovery.
An Excerpt:
Some of us are born into a dump. Our parents have filled our homes with loads of emotional garbage. Every room holds memories of screaming arguments, or worse yet, stony silences. Every day we pretend we live in a normal home, and every day more garbage arrives. The stench of denial is stifling. We leave as soon as we can to turn our new homes into dumps, taking with us as much garbage as we can carry.
Some of us create our own dumps from scratch. We grow up in loving homes where getting drunk or stoned does not excuse immature behavior. We order loads of garbage until our parents accept living in a dump or force us to leave.
In either case, many of us suddenly realize we live in a dump. Be it a mansion or a mission, it is a dump. Every day the dumptrucks pull up, driven by bitter children, ex-spouses, angry bosses, police officers, and unsympathetic judges.
We cannot understand why they keep “dumping” on us. It takes some of us a long time to remember we ordered this garbage. It takes us even longer to realize we can refuse delivery on other people’s trash.
Not using alcohol and other drugs (AAOD), slows the pace of delivery. Loads still arrive, but most often they are loads ordered before we got clean and sober. The alcoholic who stops drinking still lives in a dump, but with luck most of the garbage will rot away. He may have to deal with other people’s loads.
Recovery requires cleaning out the dump. We get rid of old garbage and learn to refuse other people’s garbage. In recovery we get out from under loads we don’t remember ordering that arrive after we get clean and sober.
If you seem to have misplaced your mansion under the mounds of garbage, read on. It is time to start digging out.
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Save Me Twice : E.A. Dustin
Save Me Twice
Based on a true story: Towards the end of World War II, when Hitler in desperation pulls in young and old to fight a losing war, 16 year old Karl together with his older brother Hans is ripped from his Mother’s house in the middle of the night to join the SS to fight a losing war.
Milman Parry’s delivered this famous lecture “The Historical Method in Literary Criticism ” in 1934, the year before he died, to the Harvard Board of Overseers. He warned about the consequences of propaganda that exploits race—and class for political purposes.
Karl’s journey during the last year of WWII, described in this book, gives a glimpse of the historical consequences of such manipulative propaganda. Mainly, we owe it to mankind and it is our responsibility, to not let history repeat itself.
Read this engaging novel of wartime.
The Blue Journal : I.B. George
THE PAST IS JUST THE BEGINNING OF DESTINY!
The story follows the destiny of Robert Anderson, a little boy of only ten, and his quest to find the truth about his parents. Unsuspecting at the beginning of his journey, Robert finds that his future has already been decided by the prophecy of the Oracle of Konaar.
The adventures he encounters help little Robert discover astonishing things and allow him to develop abilities he didn’t know he was capable of. With the help of a few loyal friends, the boy overcomes one by one all the obstacles that fate throws his way.
The denouement is unexpected, while the exploits taking place until the prophecy is fulfilled are a mixture of adventure and fantasy, alongside undertones of mystery and comic interludes.
Within the pages of this book the readers will rediscover the thrill of adventure stories, regardless of their age because, as the famous sculptor Constantin Brancuși once said, “When we are no longer children, we are already dead.”
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Can We Live a Happier Life?! : Dr. Zeev Gilkis
Can We Live a Happier Life?!
The book interleaves understandings about happiness, brain, mind and how to live a better and happier life with a personal story of a diversified career, interrupted by an advanced stage cancer, the battle, deep meditations, and discovering the answers.
It contains short stories and original illustrations exemplifying the understandings and making the reading more fun. It is a very practical book.
Many people who read this book found it enjoyable, motivational and the practical tips very useful.
The Altar Boy : Phil Stephens
The Altar Boy
Black-robed nuns, priests, bishops, the select fraternity of Altar Boys, and the ancient ceremonies of the Catholic Church. Music of the ’60s, boyhood shenanigans, Cootie doctors, and coming of age. Set in the socially and politically tumultuous period of the 1960s, The Altar Boy is the fictionalized memoir of Carl Sanders, a funny, sensitive kid, who’s caught in the middle when his family is fractured by the intrusions of a priest. We follow Carl’s confusion and pain as he watches the pious façade of the Church fall away to reveal unholy carte blanche, cover-ups, and collusion.
The book opens in the late 1980s. Carl and his brother down beer after beer at a favorite pub, trying to piece together their family’s chaotic past. The stakes are high—someone is about to return after a 20-year absence, threatening to re-ignite the family conflict. As the brothers’ painful recollections of their past become more traumatic, Carl drifts back in time to the era he tried for so many years to forget.
The story is realistic, poignant, and at times very funny. Stephens shines a timely spotlight on the then-unquestioned power of the Church, while taking the reader back to the ’60s era of rock & roll, Catholic schools, social upheaval, and boyhood pranks.
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Fanny Fun : M. Cassol
Fanny Fun
Fanny Fun is a sexy and gripping novel that explores the ideas of bisexuality and lesbianism. Through an honest glimpse into the lives of the characters, readers are taken on journeys of self- love and discovery.
Everyone struggles against adversities, but the characters in this novel all handle them in a unique way that reflects each individual character’s personality. As they grow and mature they learn what they want in life and how to go about getting it.
The theme of acceptance is a strong one throughout the story. It gives readers a glimpse into the ways in which several characters have to face a reality that is not what they expected.
This story does not lack intrigue and mystery. The reader gets sucked into the story and starts caring about the fate of the characters. Easy to relate to, these characters could easily make a reader laugh, cry or gasp in shock and amazement.
Any woman that has ever struggled with her sexuality will be able to draw inspiration and guidance from this novel. Each character’s story is poignant and can serve as an example of the ways in which women can overcome the issues they struggle with.
Have you ever stopped to think about how your actions affect the world around you? A simple word, a reckless action, what would be their consequences? Our history metamorphoses regularly and we are the sparkle of every life’s chain reaction.
Fanny Fun is about connection and the impact of our decisions and how the world can become a small place on the eternal quest for love.
How many heartaches does it take to learn to choose the right person? And is the “right person” really the one?
Immerse yourself in this lesbian melodrama, following its domino effect around the world.
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The Yoga of Sailing : Dyana Wells
The Yoga of Sailing
Sailing – a life on the ocean that can be like an extreme sport, with all the pressures, emergencies, delights and exhilarations.
Alice enjoys sailing, the thrill, the exhilarating physicality of the tug of war with nature. That’s with nature, not against it, because Alice feels more in tune with the sea and land and wide seascapes than, often times, her family.
Alice’s determination to investigate the real meaning of life, on an ocean wave, turns into an adventure that’s revealing and disturbing. She rides the inner and outer storms of each new experience – sailing, cycling, backpacking – and falls into an encounter with life that is mystical and earthy.
The Yoga of Sailing details the true life adventures, and thrills and spills of Alice, her daughter and father as they meet challenges on a small yacht in a large ocean. Fiji becomes the backdrop for family adventure and melt downs.
When a new man sweeps her off her feet, it leads to romance, passion and heroic confusion. And all the while Alice keeps juggling the spiritual and the physical. The natural world was Alice’s retreat – now who or what is supporting her?
Join an intrepid journey that is poignant, funny and inspiring.
The Yoga of Sailing is book one of the Anchors in an Open Sea trilogy by Dyana Wells.
What drives the desire for spiritual experiences?
What is this human life?
These and many other questions are explored by Alice and her family.
The Anchors in An Open Sea trilogy is packed full of sailing adventures and romance, never far from the search for meaning and love. Alice explores life in the Pacific islands – sailing, cycling and backpacking – to find her answers.
The autobiographical honesty and poetical language make this story compelling. Hang on as you sail off with her into the ocean of stunning sunsets and wild waves.
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Flowers In December : Jane Suen
A man goes home to bury his mother but finds himself.
Connor Norton returns to his hometown, following the death of his mother, knowing that he will have to confront personal feelings of guilt and regret. It is a place he has barely set foot in for the past 20 years.
Caught in the period of his life where the vibrancy of youth has diminished and the prospect of becoming middle-aged is looming, Connor finds that he is suddenly alone in the world and must somehow reshape his future and face his own mortality.
With only Tom, the family’s orange tabby cat, as his constant companion, he considers new possibilities and new directions. But will Connor be able to lay the ghosts of his past to rest? And will his return later, to the place he once called home, be enough to let him break free from the remorse which he has carried since he was 18?
In this tender, heartwarming portrait of a man who finds himself trapped between his past, his present and the future, where will this new journey lead Connor and what will the future hold when he gets there?
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Fated Memories : Joan Carney
Fated Memories
PNWA AWARD WINNING NOVEL OF TIME TRAVEL AND ROMANCE
A woman, a war, a vision of the future past…
Burdened with the scars of a tortured childhood and a shattered romance, Kitty is being forced to resign from the dull, anonymous job she’s been hiding behind. With her life in shambles and her friends moving on without her, she jumps at her cousin, Maggie’s, invitation to visit.
However, Maggie’s new boyfriend, Simon, has a secret that accidentally hurls the trio a hundred and fifty years into the past.
Trapped in the midst of the bloodiest war in American history, and acutely aware their actions might trigger a butterfly effect on the future, the events that unfold will require more mettle than Kitty’s ever had.
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The Road to War : Steven Burgauer
The Road to War : Duty & Drill, Courage & Capture
A riveting first-person account of a brave young man caught up in a cataclysmic World War.
This is the story of Captain William C. Frodsham, Jr., who — shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — enlisted in the U.S. Army Infantry, where he excelled in basic training, became a junior officer, and eventually led a combat boat team ashore on OMAHA BEACH.
Six days later, in French hedgerow country and under withering German fire, Frodsham was wounded and taken prisoner. He spent the next year as a German POW, where he suffered great deprivation before finally being liberated by advancing Russian forces.
His training, his courage, his capture. The reader is taken for a first-person tour of the times at home and then tunneled into a vastly different world on the battlefield and in a German prisoner-of-war camp.
A truly remarkable story.
“Five-plus unequivocal stars to The Road to War. It’s an extraordinary read that everyone should enjoy.”
— October 20, 2016, Publishers Daily Reviews
4 stars out of 5
— October 28, 2016, “The Book Reviewers,” a division of Full Media Ltd. (UK)
“Personal, inspiring & insightful. This book is precious.”
— November 3, 2016, The Book Bag Reviewers (UK)
“An intimate and often daunting portrait of one man’s life-changing confrontation with war, The Road to War: Duty & Drill, Courage & Capture is highly recommended.”
— November 11, 2016, BookViral Reviews
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