A motivational and inspiring autobiography of a woman touched by grace and transformed by mercy of the Lord. The inspiring story of Oluremi Sosan Omotola will touch your life in deep and maturing levels. She is a real woman, caught up in the web of a real world, and with a real story for this real generation and those to come.
Discover the moving, entertaining, never-before-told story of how one man found his calling: to see that those who defend this country and its freedoms are never forgotten. As a kid in suburban Chicago, Gary Sinise was more interested in sports and rock 'n' roll than reading or schoolwork. But when he impulsively auditioned for a school production of West Side Story, he found his true purpose--or so it seemed. Within a few years, Gary and a handful of friends created what became one of the most exciting and important new theater companies in America. From its humble beginnings in a suburban Chicago church basement and eventual move into the city, the Steppenwolf Theatre Company launched a series of groundbreaking productions, igniting Gary's career along with those of John Malkovich, Joan Allen, Gary Cole, Laurie Metcalf, Jeff Perry, John Mahoney, and countless others. Television and film came calling soon after, and Gary starred in Of Mice and Men (which he also directed) and The Stand before taking the role that would change his life in unforeseeable ways: Lieutenant Dan in the Academy Award-winning Forrest Gump. The military community's embrace of the character of the disabled veteran was matched only by the depth of Gary's realization that America's defenders had not received all the honor, respect, and gratitude their sacrifices deserve. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, this became Gary's new calling. Grateful American, now a New York Times bestseller, documents Gary's dedication to working tirelessly on behalf of those who serve this country, sharing stories about how he has: Entertained more than a half million troops around the world playing bass guitar with his Lt. Dan Band Raised funds on behalf of veterans Founded the Gary Sinise Foundation with a mission to serve and honor America's defenders, veterans, first responders, their families, and those in need Grateful American is the moving, entertaining, profoundly gripping story of how one man found his life's work: to see that those who defend this country and its freedoms are never forgotten. Praise for Grateful American: "Gary Sinise writes as he lives, and as the artist and actor he has always been: with American authenticity, purpose, and a conviction that is inseparable from his nature." --Tom Hanks, actor and filmmaker "No entertainer alive today has visited and performed more for our troops at veterans hospitals and military bases all over the world than Gary Sinise. For years his foundation has built 'smart homes' for our troops that were severely wounded in combat. The book is called Grateful American, and I promise that after you read it you will be grateful for what Gary has accomplished and contributed to our country. He's truly one of a kind." --Clint Eastwood, actor, director, producer, and musician
The end of the school year is here, and Very Fairy Princess Gerry is getting ready to graduate! She always loves a celebration, but can't help but feel a little sad as she empties her cubby, takes down her art projects, and says goodbye to her class pet, Houdini the hamster. She's also a little nervous about leaving Miss Pym... what if her new teacher doesn't let Gerry wear her wings and crown? Change can be hard, even for a fairy princess! Thankfully, she realizes that new things can bring their own sparkle. From the mother-daughter team of Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton comes another delightful story in the #1 New York Times best-selling Very Fairy Princess series.
Children learn the alphabet and practice gratitude with this dazzling ABC book of every-day wonders. There are endless things to be thankful for, but let's start with 26. This delightfully illustrated picture book takes young readers (and adults) on an alphabetical adventure that is sure to leave them feeling abundant, positive, and joyful. D is for dancing. Thank you, dancing. I shake my hips and swing them side to side. Life is a dance, so dance and feel alive. E is for evening. Thank you, evening. A gorgeous sunset floods the golden sky. I lie on sunlit grass till stars come by. ABC Thankful Me, written in gentle, rhythmic rhyme, is an ideal read-aloud book and a perfect bedtime meditation on life's many blessings.
Just as Emma and her husband, Peter, began settling in to what should have been the golden years of their retirement, everything fell apart. Peter decided to suddenly leave their marriage of forty-one years, turning Emma’s world upside-down. Hurt and confused, Emma found herself living alone for the first time in her life, at sixty-five years of age. She abruptly had significant choices to make, new skills to learn, and countless tears to shed. In a relatively short time she and Peter divided their belongings, sold their home, and legally separated. Discovering her own strength and independence, Emma began a new existence. Refusing to surrender herself to a life of self-pity and loneliness, she took charge of her own future and her own happiness. Over time, despair and sadness were replaced with joy and gratitude for her new life, which eventually led her to a new love. Though it was disguised as trauma, Emma realized her first husband had given her the gift of a lifetime, to which she could only answer, “Thanks for leaving me.”
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist A New York Times Notable Book of the Year "Transcendently disobedient, the most existence-affirming and iconoclastic defense a writer could mount against her own extinction." --Heidi Julavits, New York Times Book Review From "one of the great anomalies of contemporary literature" (The New York Times Magazine) comes a breathtaking memoir about terminal cancer and the author's relationship with Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing. In July 2014, Jenny Diski was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and given "two or three years" to live. She didn't know how to react. All responses felt scripted, as if she were acting out her part. To find the response that felt wholly her own, she had to face the clichés and try to write about it. And there was another story to write, one she had not yet told: that of being taken in at age fifteen by the author Doris Lessing, and the subsequent fifty years of their complex relationship. In the pages of the London Review of Books, to which Diski contributed for the last quarter century, she unraveled her history with Lessing: the fairy-tale rescue as a teenager, the difficulties of being absorbed into an unfamiliar family, the modeling of a literary life. Swooping from one memory to the next--alighting on the hysterical battlefield of her parental home, her expulsion from school, the drug-taking twenty-something in and out of psychiatric hospitals--and telling all through the lens of living with terminal cancer, through what she knows will be her final months, Diski paints a portrait of two extraordinary writers--Lessing and herself. From a wholly original thinker comes a book like no other: a cerebral, witty, dazzlingly candid masterpiece about an uneasy relationship; about memory and writing, ingratitude and anger; about living with illness and facing death.
“A candid, inspiring memoir of cultural and historical importance” from an Eritrean-Ethiopian War refugee (Michael Bloomberg). Dawit Gebremichael Habte fled his homeland of Eritrea as a teenager. In the midst of the ongoing Eritrean-Ethiopian war, Dawit and his sisters crossed illegally into Kenya. Without their parents or documents to help their passage, they experienced the abuse and neglect known by so many refugees around the world. But Dawit refused to give up. He stayed resilient and positive. Journeying to the United States under asylum—and still a boy—Dawit found a new purpose in an unfamiliar land. Against impossible odds, he studied hard and was accepted to Johns Hopkins University, eventually landing a job as a software engineer at Bloomberg. After a few years, with the support of Michael Bloomberg himself, Dawit returned to his homeland to offer business opportunities for other Eritreans. Dawit found a way to help his ancestral land emerge from thirty years of debilitating war. Gratitude in Low Voices is about how one man was marginalized, but how compassion and love never abandoned him. It’s about learning how to care for family, and how to honor those who help the helpless. This account reminds us that hope is not lost. “An inspiring memoir by Dawit Gebremichael Habte, who poignantly portrays his childhood in Africa and his struggles as a refugee to the United States . . . This book is a reaffirmation of the good that people can do and how one young man succeeded despite the odds against him.”—Foreword Reviews
Trista Rehn was a pediatric physical therapist moonlighting as a Miami Heat dancer when she heard about casting for a new reality show—one guy getting to know twenty-five girls in the hope of finding a fiancée. As improbable and crazy as it sounded, Trista took the chance—and had her heart broken on the very first season of The Bachelor. But the next season, as the first Bachelorette, her fairy tale fell into place during a whirlwind courtship with poetry-writing firefighter Ryan Sutter and, eventually, a dream-come-true wedding on national TV. In the midst of building a life with Ryan and raising two kids, Trista started to make a conscious effort to remember her favorite part of each day. And she's made sure to post these thoughts, her own personal expressions of gratitude, almost every night on Twitter and Facebook—even on days she was dealing with fertility issues, a difficult pregnancy, family deaths, and other challenges that many of us face. Sometimes it's the smallest gestures and the most unassuming things that can have the greatest effects. Trista is often asked her secret to being one of the rare reality-TV relationships to make it to the altar and beyond. In this heartfelt book, she shares the simple yet profound keys to finding everyday happiness: gratitude and grace. From the blink-and-you'll-miss-them moments we have with our kids, our spouses, our pets, or even strangers, to the more obvious lessons we pick up from reading the news or hearing an inspirational story, knowing how to recognize, accept, and be grateful for all of our daily blessings is truly what “happily ever after” means.
In his first and only official autobiography, music icon Elton John reveals the truth about his extraordinary life. Me is the joyously funny, honest and moving story of the most enduringly successful singer/songwriter of all time. The Sunday Times bestseller with a new chapter bringing the story up to date. 'The rock memoir of the decade' – Daily Mail 'The rock star's gloriously entertaining and candid memoir is a gift to the reader' – Sunday Times ______________ Christened Reginald Dwight was a shy boy with Buddy Holly glasses who grew up in the London suburb of Pinner and dreamed of becoming a pop star. By the age of twenty-three, he was performing his first gig in America, facing an astonished audience in his bright yellow dungarees, a star-spangled T-shirt and boots with wings. Elton John had arrived and the music world would never be the same again. His life has been full of drama, from the early rejection of his work with songwriting partner Bernie Taupin to spinning out of control as a chart-topping superstar; from half-heartedly trying to drown himself in his LA swimming pool to disco-dancing with the Queen; from friendships with John Lennon, Freddie Mercury and George Michael to setting up his AIDS Foundation. All the while, Elton was hiding a drug addiction that would grip him for over a decade. In Me Elton also writes powerfully about getting clean and changing his life, about finding love with David Furnish and becoming a father. In a voice that is warm, humble and open, this is Elton on his music and his relationships, his passions and his mistakes. This is a story that will stay with you, by a living legend. ______________ 'Self-deprecating, funny . . . You cannot help but enjoy his company throughout, temper tantrums and all' – The Times 'Racy, pacy and crammed with scurrilous anecdotes - what more could you ask from the rocket man' – Guardian (Book of the Week) 'Chatty, gossipy, amusing and at times brutally candid' – Telegraph
