And Then Life Happens


Book Description

A moving account by Auma Obama about her life in Africa and Europe, and her relationship with her brother, Barack Obama. While her younger brother Barack grew up in the U.S. and Indonesia, Auma Obama's childhood played out at the other end of the world in a remote village in Kenya, the birthplace of the siblings' shared father. Barack and Auma met for the first time in the 1980s, and they built a lasting relationship which lead to travels together in Kenya, research into their family history and finally Auma's support for her brother's political career and eventual bid for the U.S. presidency. Auma spent sixteen years studying and living in Germany, moved to England for love, and gave birth to a daughter there. The tension between her original and chosen worlds and cultures was a constant challenge, and eventually Auma returned to Africa and worked to support young men and women in shaping their futures. In And Then Life Happens, her candid and emotional memoir, Auma shares her own story as well as recollections of and experiences with her famous brother, who says about their first encounter: "I hugged her, we looked at each other, and laughed. I knew right then that I loved her."




Life Happens


Book Description

From the 2005 Pulitzer Prize—winning columnist Connie Schultz comes fresh, clever, insightful commentary on life today: love, politics, social issues, family, and much, much more. In the tradition of Anna Quindlen, Molly Ivins, and Erma Bombeck, but with a distinctive voice and sensibility all her own, Connie Schultz comes out of the heartland of America to get you seeing, feeling, and thinking more deeply about the lives we lead today. “You might spot someone you know in the stories here,” writes Connie. “Maybe you’ll even find a glimpse of yourself. Yes, each of us is unique, but life happens in ways that bind us like Gorilla Glue.” In Life Happens, Connie shares sharp, passionate observations, winning our hearts with personal thoughts on a wide range of topics, from finding love in middle age to the meaning behind her father’s lunch pail, from single motherhood, to who really gets the tips you leave and why as the war in Iraq, race relations, gay marriage, and wwhy women don’t vote. In a more humorous vein, Connie shares her mother’s advice on men (“Don’t marry him until you see how he treats the waitress”) and warns men everywhere against using the dreaded f-word (it’s not the one you think). Along the way, Connie introduces us to the heroic people who populate our world and shows us how just one person can make a difference. Charming, provocative, funny, and perceptive, Life Happens gives us, for the first time, Connie Schultz’s celebrated commentary in one irresistible volume. Life Happens challenges us to be more open and alive to others and to the world around us.




The Angry Therapist


Book Description

Tackling relationships, career, and family issues, John Kim, LMFT, thinks of himself as a life-styledesigner, not a therapist. His radical new approach, that he sometimes calls “self-help in a shot glass” is easy, real, and to the point. He helps people make changes to their lives so that personal growth happens organically, just by living. Let’s face it, therapy is a luxury. Few of us have the time or money to devote to going to an office every week. With anecdotes illustrating principles in action (in relatable and sometimes irreverent fashion) and stand-alone practices and exercises, Kim gives readers the tools and directions to focus on what's right with them instead of what's wrong. When John Kim was going through the end of a relationship, he began blogging as The Angry Therapist, documenting his personal journey post-divorce. Traditional therapists avoid transparency, but Kim preferred the language of "me too" as opposed to "you should." He blogged about his own shortcomings, revelations, views on relationships, and the world. He spoke a different therapeutic language —open, raw, and at times subversive — and people responded. The Angry Therapist blog, that inspired this book, has been featured in The Atlantic Monthly and on NPR.




Life Is What Happens While You Make Other Plans


Book Description

Jerry's zest for life and breadth of experiences, combined with an idiosyncratic sense of humor, have yielded this collection of entertaining, insightful, and heartwarming essays. Life Is What Happens While You Make Other Plans is a must-read for anyone interested in getting a glimpse of life through the spectacles of a modern-day Renaissance man. --DAVID LEE, MD, emergency department physician, Palomar Health Dr. Jerry Kolins--pathologist, hospital administrator, scuba diver, fine wine collector, Wolverine football fanatic, and bow tie aficionado--has now shown what he can do as a writer. Life Is What Happens While You Make Other Plans is a collection of essays that are poignant, funny, and sincere. --JOHN CANNON, retired, editor at the San Diego Union-Tribune for twenty-seven years; Pulitzer Prize nominee; and graduate of Loyola University Chicago Jerry couldn't make it physically through one day of football practice, but his passion and obsession with Michigan football are truly sincere to those of us who played the game. --BRAYLON EDWARDS, Fred Biletnikoff Award winner (2004), NFL Pro Bowl (2007), and author of Doing It My Way: My Outspoken Life as a Michigan Wolverine, NFL Receiver, and Beyond Jerry's vibrant personality comes across through his engaging prose, the relatively concise themed segments, and his ability and willingness to tackle a wide range of topics, even extremely painful and personal ones, head-on. That's rather brave of him, and it adds significantly to the authenticity of his voice. --DIARMAID Ó FOIGHIL, professor and curator, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan




Life Happens Next


Book Description

Stuck in Neutral, a Printz Honor Book, introduced the world to Shawn McDaniel, a fourteen-year-old kid with cerebral palsy. But what happens next? Shawn's got a new perspective on life. But no one has a clue. That's because they can see only his wheelchair, his limp body, his drool. What they don't see? His brain, with perfect auditory memory. And his heart, which is in love with a girl. And his fierce belief that someday someone will realize there's way more to him than his appearance. How do you connect with others when you can't talk, walk, or even wave hello? In the sequel to Stuck in Neutral, which ALA Booklist called "an intense reading experience," Shawn McDaniel discovers a new definition of "normal" and finds that life happens next for everyone.




When Life Happens


Book Description

Life. We all want to know how to make the best of it. We all want to know how to get the most out of it. We all want to have the best possible outcome with the least amount of opposition. The tools within these pages will help real people with real issues matriculate through real life, successfully. The riveting and thought provoking, material will help anyone, no matter what stage of life they are in, become better at handling LIFE when it happens.




Life Is What Happens ... at Play


Book Description

Do you have relationship challenges? Marriage doldrums? An unfulfilling career? A lack of passion, purpose, or fire in your life? Have you faded away into the gray? Does any of this sound familiar to you? Life is What Happens at Play is a bold out-pouring of soul and emotion. The author shares her innermost fears, personal mistakes, judgments, dysfunctional patterns, and finally her journey toward discovering enlightenment. The experiences she shares are woven around a timeline from childhood through marriage and divorce and are compiled from her various adventures as she seeks to find herself and her lifes purpose. You are reading these words not by chance, but because you may be at a point in your life where you yourself are seeking to gain a deeper wisdom of whom you really are and what your higher purpose is. Life is What Happens at Play seeks to instill in you a new sense of hope and understanding as to your greater calling by turning on the light inside of you that may have been dimmed for too long and rediscovering the magic that your inherent inner child can bring to you. You may be surprised at just how easy it is! Now I realize that I had, in a sense, been sleeping all those years and just dreaming I was awake. I'd always believed that a life of quality, enjoyment and wisdom were my human birthright and would be automatically bestowed upon me as time passed. I never suspected that I would have to learn how to live. Dan Millman on success in his book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior




Stuck in Neutral


Book Description

This "intense reading experience"* is a Printz Honor Book. Shawn McDaniel's life is not what it may seem to anyone looking at him. He is glued to his wheelchair, unable to voluntarily move a muscle—he can't even move his eyes. For all Shawn's father knows, his son may be suffering. Shawn may want a release. And as long as he is unable to communicate his true feelings to his father, Shawn's life is in danger. To the world, Shawn's senses seem dead. Within these pages, however, we meet a side of him that no one else has seen—a spirit that is rich beyond imagining, breathing life. *Booklist starred review




What Happens After You Die


Book Description

Popular pastor Randy Frazee answers perennial questions about life after death with an accessible exploration of what the Bible has to say on the subject. In both Christian and pop culture, there is a certain fascination with the afterlife. What happens after you die? What happens if you die with Christ or without Christ? What happens when Jesus returns if you have or haven’t accepted Christ? What exactly comes next? Randy Frazee, popular pastor of Oak Hills Church and general editor of the wildly successful Believe and The Story programs, answers these questions and more. Born out of a deeply personal search for truth after the death of his mother, What Happens After You Die is a straightforward exploration of what the Bible says about life after death. From heaven and hell to the Lake of Fire and the actual presence of God, Frazee uncovers what is simply cultural tradition and what is truly biblical. He shows readers not only the death Jesus came to save us from but the life he came to save us for. Based on a teaching series that has had more online views than any other series Frazee has done to date, What Happens After You Die is a guide to the perennial questions about life and death, what comes next, and how we should live until then.




Life's Great Question


Book Description

Life is not what you get out of it . . . it’s what you put back in. Yet our current means for summarizing life’s work, from resumes to salaries, are devoid of what matters most. This is why the work we do is often bad for our wellbeing, when it should be making us happier and healthier. What are the most meaningful contributions we can make? This is Life’s Great Question. Life is about what you do that improves the world around you. It is about investing in the development of other people. And it is about efforts that will continue to grow when you are gone. Life’s Great Question will show you how to make your work and life more meaningful, and greatly boost your wellbeing. In this remarkably quick read, author Tom Rath describes how finding your greatest contribution is far more effective than following talent or passion alone. More than a book, each copy includes a code for an online program that identifies the most significant contributions you can make. This deeply practical book will alter how you look at your work and change the way you live each day.