The Ride
The Ride

Author: Larry Andrews

Publisher: Independently Published

Published: 2019-04-04

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 9781091672857

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Larry Andrews once thought he had it all. The senior class president and former athlete had a great family, bright future, and he became successful at an early age making lots of money; so much money that he lived an out-of-control lifestyle filled with booze, parties, and finally, drugs. But, his life imploded. That's what meth does; it tears apart everything good and leaves the user with a life usually shattered beyond repair. After escaping close calls again and again, Andrews was arrested in 2001 on drug charges he couldn't shake. While sitting in a stark jail cell, facing a 20-year mandatory prison sentence, God made Himself known in a stunning, extraordinary way. This is the compelling true story of how God can transform a life so messed up, it seems unsalvageable. From the first page to the last, the book speaks these truths to every reader: you, too, can be forgiven, leave the past behind, move forward, embrace the adventures of a faith-filled life, and truly enjoy ... The Ride.

Finding Freedom
Finding Freedom

Author: Jarvis Jay Masters

Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Published: 2020-07-14

Total Pages: 171

ISBN-13: 1611809118

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There are many forms of liberation—some that exist at the mercy of circumstance and others that can never be taken away. In this stirring and timely collection of stories, essays, poems, and letters, Jarvis Jay Masters explores the meaning of true freedom on his road to inner peace through Buddhist practice. He reveals his life as a young African American man surrounded by violence, his entanglement in the criminal justice system, and—following an encounter with Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche—an unfolding commitment to nonviolence and peacemaking. At turns joyful, heartbreaking, frightening, and soaring with profound insight, Masters’s story offers a vision of hope and the possibility of freedom in even the darkest of times.

Finding Freedom
Finding Freedom

Author: Erin French

Publisher: Celadon Books

Published: 2021-04-06

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 1250312337

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**New York Times Bestseller** From Erin French, owner of the critically acclaimed The Lost Kitchen, a TIME world dining destination, a life-affirming memoir about survival, renewal, and finding a community to lift her up Long before The Lost Kitchen became a world dining destination with every seating filled the day the reservation book opens each spring, Erin French was a girl roaming barefoot on a 25-acre farm, a teenager falling in love with food while working the line at her dad’s diner and a young woman finding her calling as a professional chef at her tiny restaurant tucked into a 19th century mill. This singular memoir—a classic American story—invites readers to Erin's corner of her beloved Maine to share the real person behind the “girl from Freedom” fairytale, and the not-so-picture-perfect struggles that have taken every ounce of her strength to overcome, and that make Erin’s life triumphant. In Finding Freedom, Erin opens up to the challenges, stumbles, and victories that have led her to the exact place she was ever meant to be, telling stories of multiple rock-bottoms, of darkness and anxiety, of survival as a jobless single mother, of pills that promised release but delivered addiction, of a man who seemed to offer salvation but in the end ripped away her very sense of self. And of the beautiful son who was her guiding light as she slowly rebuilt her personal and culinary life around the solace she found in food—as a source of comfort, a sense of place, as a way of bringing goodness into the world. Erin’s experiences with deep loss and abiding hope, told with both honesty and humor, will resonate with women everywhere who are determined to find their voices, create community, grow stronger and discover their best-selves despite seemingly impossible odds. Set against the backdrop of rural Maine and its lushly intense, bountiful seasons, Erin reveals the passion and courage needed to invent oneself anew, and the poignant, timeless connections between food and generosity, renewal and freedom.

Grace Behind Bars
Grace Behind Bars

Author: Bo Mitchell

Publisher: NavPress

Published: 2017-03-01

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1624057845

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Grace Behind Bars shares the true and dramatic account of how Bo Mitchell, businessman and chaplain for the Denver Nuggets, inexplicably ended up in federal prison only to find God’s true freedom behind bars. Ironically, it’s in a six-by-nine-foot cell that God begins to free this driven Christian leader from his prison of performance and success. In the end, Bo realizes that God’s love is a gift, not something he must earn. But there’s more to the story: Just before Bo enters prison, his wife, Gari, becomes incapacitated by a brain illness and enters her own prison of clinical depression. Readers will see how the couple struggled together as their world fell apart, yet ultimately grew closer to each other and God behind the bars of their trials. This story will not only inspire and encourage readers, it will show them how they, too, can find spiritual freedom in life’s “prisons” if they choose to see God’s hand in their lives.

Sparrow in the Razor Wire: Finding Freedom from Within While Serving a Life Sentence
Sparrow in the Razor Wire: Finding Freedom from Within While Serving a Life Sentence

Author: Quan Huynh

Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing

Published: 2020-09-15

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9781544514406

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In 1999, Quan Huynh shot and killed another man in a gang-related incident in Hollywood, California. He received a prison sentence of fifteen years to life in a state that, at the time, did not parole prisoners with life sentences. Behind bars, Quan continued his downward spiral. This could have been the end of the story for Quan, as it is for many prisoners. But somewhere along the way, he discovered a new path-one that prompted him to commit to self-reflection, truth, and personal responsibility. Sparrow in the Razor Wire is Quan's story of transformation inside a place many see as the end of the road. In his book, he shares the journey of redemption and discovery that led to his ultimate freedom. He found that, no matter the prison, the key to unlocking the door is in each one of us.

Reading Behind Bars
Reading Behind Bars

Author: Jill Grunenwald

Publisher: Center Point

Published: 2019-09

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 9781643583211

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In December 2008, twentysomething Jill Grunenwald graduated with her master's degree in library science, ready to start living her dream of becoming a librarian. But the economy had a different idea. As the Great Recession reared its ugly head, jobs were scarce. After some searching, however, Jill was lucky enough to snag one of the few librarian gigs left in her home state of Ohio. The catch? The job was behind bars as the prison librarian at a men's minimum-security prison. Talk about baptism by fire.

Exit to Freedom
Exit to Freedom

Author: Calvin C. Johnson, Jr.

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2005-09-01

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9780820327846

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"The only firsthand account of a wrongful conviction overturned by DNA evidence"--Cover.

Life After Murder
Life After Murder

Author: Nancy Mullane

Publisher: Public Affairs

Published: 2012-06-26

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 1610390296

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An award-winning journalist and producer of This American Life traces the stories of five convicted murderers to assess their struggles for redemption, efforts toward parole and first steps in transitioning back to civilian life. 25,000 first printing.

Philosophy Behind Bars
Philosophy Behind Bars

Author: Kirstine Szifris

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2021-07-16

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1529205557

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Male prisons can be dangerous places with a climate of distrust, but can long-term prisoners be given the space to reflect and grow ? This ground-breaking study found that engaging prisoners in philosophy education enabled them to think about some of the ‘big’ questions in life and as a result to see themselves and others differently.

When Truth Is All You Have
When Truth Is All You Have

Author: Jim McCloskey

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2020-07-14

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0385545045

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“A riveting and infuriating examination of criminal prosecutions, revealing how easy it is to convict the wrong person and how nearly impossible it is to undo the error.” —Washington Post "No one has illuminated this problem more thoughtfully and persistently." —Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy Jim McCloskey was at a midlife crossroads when he met the man who would change his life. A former management consultant, McCloskey had grown disenchanted with the business world; he enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary at the age of 37. His first assignment, in 1980, was as a chaplain at Trenton State Prison. Among the inmates was Jorge de los Santos, a heroin addict who'd been convicted of murder years earlier. He swore to McCloskey that he was innocent—and, over time, McCloskey came to believe him. With no legal or investigative training to speak of, McCloskey threw himself into the case. Two years later, thanks to those efforts, Jorge de los Santos walked free, fully exonerated. McCloskey had found his calling. He established Centurion Ministries, the first group in America devoted to overturning wrongful convictions. Together with his staff and a team of forensic experts, lawyers, and volunteers—through tireless investigation and an unflagging dedication to justice—Centurion has freed 65 innocent prisoners who had been sentenced to life or death. When Truth Is All You Have is McCloskey's inspirational story, as well as those of the unjustly imprisoned for whom he has fought. Spanning the nation, it is a chronicle of faith and doubt; of triumphant success and shattering failure. It candidly exposes a life of searching and struggle, uplifted by McCloskey's certainty that he had found what he was put on earth to do. Filled with generosity, humor, and compassion, it is the soul-bearing account of a man who has redeemed innumerable lives—and incited a movement—with nothing more than his unshakeable belief in the truth.