Make a Life, Not Just a Living


Book Description

An extraordinary book designed to help readers articulate and pursue a definition of success that leads to a balanced, fulfilled, and significant life.




I Want to Live, Not Just Survive


Book Description

'I want to live, not just survive' takes you on Anna's journey, of taking back control of her life. In 2015 the priority had been on her health but in 2016 the priorities were switched; from focusing on her health, to living life to the full and cramming in as much fun as possible. She goes on breaks away and fits in her hospital appointments around them and she begins to look forward to a better, more balanced life. She ticks off many things on her bucket list and she literally spends half of the year travelling away from home, on various trips both home and abroad. She takes as many holidays as she can, doing as much as her body would allow and then some. 2016 proved to be an amazing year for Anna; we see how the love of her family and friends has such a positive effect on her and enables her to fulfill her dream of travelling. She is still battling with her health but she is always aiming for it not to consume her; it was important for her to shift her focus, she didn't want to be seen as the 'sick person' who couldn't do anything. 'I want to live, not just survive' shows how, even with significant illness and disability, you can still achieve, you can still live your life and enjoy all that it brings. Reading this book will make you want to experience new things, to travel to different places and fill your life with as much enjoyment as possible, irrespective of your ability. Reviews from Amazon, for the first book in the series, 'You are my sunshine.' 'A truly inspirational read, that illustrates a person's suffering, trials and tribulations but still leaves you at the end of the book with a positive outlook on life, and feeling anything is achievable.''Very inspirational great reading. Couldn't put the book down.cant wait for the follow up book. Hope Anna is doing good.''Inspirational read by Anna. Written with obvious passion for her family and friends who are helping her through her illness. Complete insight to how she is coping with her illness and the accomplishments she has achieved whilst fighting this battle. Remarkable lady!''Anna's bravery and determination to beat her condition is inspirational!As a nurse and a mum I related with everything she said about her experiences and worry for her children! An amazing book and a must read. I will be expecting any student nurse who passes under me to read this and will highly recommend it as it gives all perspectives.God bless Anna and the kids. Hoping for a happy ever after. 'Reviews from Amazon, for the second book in the series, 'Learning to dance in the rain''I couldn't wait to read the second book, just hoping it was as good as the first. Well it truly was, yet another moving and inspirational story of one womans battle, how she adjusts to a different life and finds strength not only from herself but from her amazing children. Her story shows how you can find positives in every situation, she certainly did learn to dance in the rain!!!''I read this book in 2 days. An excellent follow on story of her battle of recovery after major surgery. Anna is an inspiration and her determination to remain positive even when she felt so poorly, continue with her studies, travel and be a role model to her children makes for a great read. Well done Anna Gray, I look forward to reading the next book.''A great sequel to the fabulous You Are My Sunshine. Anna Gray is inspiring and humorous and writes with honesty and grit about her fight back to health. Can't wait for Part 3!'




A Little Life


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.




Big Book of Self-Reliant Living


Book Description

Rural homesteaders and urban apartment-dwellers alike will find a mother lode of practical information packed into this completely revised and updated edition of the ultimate how-to handbook for all generations. A selective compendium of public-domain documents, it brings together in one volume a wealth of knowledge and useful instruction on just about every imaginable aspect of self-sufficiency—from building a dwelling and growing food to raising children, using tools of all kinds, and, yes, getting more mileage out of your car. Readers will learn how to: build a greenhouse; administer first aid; stock an emergency shelter; survive in the wilderness, at sea, and in the city; plant, buy farmland; grow plants indoors and out; read architect’s drawings; care for household pets; repair clothing; hunt, trap, and fish; repair a screen or leaking faucet; butcher and store big-game kill; relieve allergy symptoms; control insects; stay safe during storms and floods; can and freeze fruits and vegetables; take your own blood pressure; and much, much more! Praise for a previous edition: “How we have survived this long without [this book], I don’t know. The concept is brilliant and simple. . . . If we had lived in a rural community a century ago, much of the knowledge gathered here would have been in our bones.” —Harper’s




Just Jen


Book Description

In this funny, heartwarming celebration of kindness and inclusion, spunky grade school narrator Jenna, or Jen (as she prefers), shares all about living with invisible differences. Jen skips through life, introducing readers to methods of coping with congenital anomalies, including hearing loss, palate and heart defects, and scoliosis caused by 22q11.2 DS. Hilarious illustrations and the story reference differences such as autism, peanut allergy, diabetes, NG tubes, sensory preferences, CHD, asthma, Lyme disease, lupus, contrasting opinions on tuna, and more. Kid-friendly glossary explains concepts and medical lingo to readers of all ages. A colorable perfect primer on empathy for school aged children, Just Jen teaches readers to be kind, be yourself, and accept others as they are.




The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck


Book Description

#1 New York Times Bestseller Over 10 million copies sold In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people. For decades, we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "F**k positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let’s be honest, shit is f**ked and we have to live with it." In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn’t sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is—a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is his antidote to the coddling, let’s-all-feel-good mindset that has infected American society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up. Manson makes the argument, backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes, that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better. Human beings are flawed and limited—"not everybody can be extraordinary, there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault." Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties, once we stop running and avoiding and start confronting painful truths, we can begin to find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility, curiosity, and forgiveness we seek. There are only so many things we can give a f**k about so we need to figure out which ones really matter, Manson makes clear. While money is nice, caring about what you do with your life is better, because true wealth is about experience. A much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eye moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is a refreshing slap for a generation to help them lead contented, grounded lives.




Nickel and Dimed


Book Description

The New York Times bestselling work of undercover reportage from our sharpest and most original social critic, with a new foreword by Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job—any job—can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you int to live indoors. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity—a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom. And now, in a new foreword, Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, explains why, twenty years on in America, Nickel and Dimed is more relevant than ever.




Kosher Living


Book Description

Kosher Living Kosher Living is an essential guide to Jewish ethics and morality for your everyday life. Rabbi Ron Isaacs offers a warm, humorous, and eminently useful book that shows what is really kosher, proper, and appropriate in all aspects of our lives. Kosher Living includes comprehensive entries organized into practical categories of daily life practices—business, hospitality, relationships, care of the body, and more; it gives advice from all aspects of Jewish religion, custom, ritual, and tradition. This book is an invaluable source of inspiration and a definitive reference work for every Jewish family. Written in an easy-to-use format, Kosher Living is a perfect tool for teaching Jewish values and tradition. "Rabbi Isaacs has a beautiful list of books to his credit that have taught us all wonderful, practical, and meaningful Torah. This latest volume will certainly add many more ways for us to live the Good Life Jewishly. Yasher Koach to the Rabbi!" —Danny Siegel, author, poet, lecturer "Judaism is a civilization that stresses the pursuit of holiness through moral behavior. People of all religious backgrounds will find that Kosher Living provides insights into not just the foods that are kosher or fit to eat but, more importantly, the behaviors and practices that are ethical." —Arnold Dashefsky, professor, department of sociology; director, Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life; director, Berman Institute North American Jewish Data Bank




Just Enough


Book Description

How the mindset of traditional Japanese society can guide our own efforts to lead a green lifestyle today. If we want to live sustainably, how should we feel about nature? About waste? About our forests and rivers? About food? Just Enough is a book of stories and sketches that give valuable insight into what it is like to live in a sustainable society by describing life in Japan some two hundred years ago, during the late Edo period, when cities and villages faced many of the same environmental challenges we do today and met them beautifully and inventively.




Home Education


Book Description

Home Education consists of six lectures by Charlotte Mason about the raising and educating of young children (up to the age of nine), for parents and teachers. She encourages us to spend a lot of time outdoors, immersed in nature, handling natural objects, and collecting experiences on which to base the rest of their education. She discusses the use of training in good habits such as attention, thinking, imagining, remembering, performing tasks with perfect execution, obedience, and truthfulness, to replace undesirable tendencies in children (and the adults that they grow into). She details how lessons in various school subjects can be done using her approach. She concludes with remarks about the Will, the Conscience, and the Divine Life in the Child. Charlotte Mason was a late nineteenth-century British educator whose ideas were far ahead of her time. She believed that children are born persons worthy of respect, rather than blank slates, and that it was better to feed their growing minds with living literature and vital ideas and knowledge, rather than dry facts and knowledge filtered and pre-digested by the teacher. Her method of education, still used by some private schools and many homeschooling families, is gentle and flexible, especially with younger children, and includes first-hand exposure to great and noble ideas through books in each school subject, conveying wonder and arousing curiosity, and through reflection upon great art, music, and poetry; nature observation as the primary means of early science teaching; use of manipulatives and real-life application to understand mathematical concepts and learning to reason, rather than rote memorization and working endless sums; and an emphasis on character and on cultivating and maintaining good personal habits. Schooling is teacher-directed, not child-led, but school time should be short enough to allow students free time to play and to pursue their own worthy interests such as handicrafts. Traditional Charlotte Mason schooling is firmly based on Christianity, although the method is also used successfully by secular families and families of other religions.