Strip Naked and Re-dress with Happiness


Book Description

Strip Naked & Re-Dress With Happiness is a handbook not only for surviving adversity, but for discovering how to thrive as a result. Maria Hocking’s own inspiring personal story is woven throughout the book, accompanied by ‘changing room tips’ - tools and techniques to help you understand your emotions and behaviours, and move through personal challenge. You’ll discover that ‘getting naked’ – losing what you used to take for granted - is an opportunity to let go of who you thought you were, and find out who you really are. Enter the changing room to change your mind and your life. Maria is walking, talking, pen pushing proof that these tips work, because she used them to change her own life. Within every challenge lies a gift, just waiting to be discovered: this book will open your eyes to help you find it, and discover a higher level of happiness as a result.




The Happy Closet – Well-Being is Well-Dressed


Book Description

Get ready – it's time to create a happy closet!The Happy Closet will help you transform your wardrobe (and your mind) into an organised and clutter-free space, ensuring you dress for the person you are today and never again utter the ill-fated words, 'I have nothing to wear'.In this inspirational book you'll find out how to move past the unconscious hoarding patterns in your personality. You will learn how to go from collecting rails of clothes you rarely wear to shopping effectively and mindfully to building a wardrobe that works for you, whatever your lifestyle. Once your clothes are in order, you will feel more confident, more in control and less anxious.This is a book for anyone who has ever wanted to have more with less. Get ready to discover your Happy Closet, where well-being is always well-dressed.




The Future Tense of Joy


Book Description

"Jessica Teich's understanding of trauma is the infallible authority upon which her tale rests. But the delicacy and nuance with which she renders this story is that of a poet." -- Meryl Streep Jessica Teich was among the first wave of women to expose Hollywood's culture of harassment and abuse. Her memoir, The Future Tense of Joy, tells the inspiring story of her own recovery from trauma, empowering other victims to move past silence and shame toward help, healing, and hope. Teich writes openly, courageously, of the challenges facing so many survivors: to feel safe, to find love, to nurture optimism and resilience, and to reclaim the sense of connection -- of belonging -- that defines us as human beings. Kirkus called The Future Tense of Joy "an honest, compassionate memoir about shaking off personal demons." Library Journal said, "Teich looks at motherhood, depression, the effect of damaging relationships, and the challenges placed on successful, driven women. She does so with grace and openness, even while exploring painful parts of her past." (starred review) The Future Tense of Joy belongs with classics of the genre-from Eat, Pray, Love and The Glass Castle to Wild-that celebrate the triumph of truth-telling and the redeeming power of love. Lyrical, funny and brave, Teich's book speaks to anyone eager to emerge from the long shadow of betrayal to find love, liberation, and joy.




Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All


Book Description

Allan Gurganus's Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All became an instant classic upon its publication. Critics and readers alike fell in love with the voice of ninety-nine-year-old Confederate widow Lucy Marsden, one of the most entertaining and loquacious heroines in American literature. Lucy married at the turn of the twentieth century, when she was fifteen and her husband was fifty. If Colonel William Marsden was a veteran of the "War for Southern Independence," Lucy became a "veteran of the veteran" with a unique perspective on Southern history and Southern manhood. Lucy’s story encompasses everything from the tragic death of a Confederate boy soldier to the feisty narrator's daily battles in the Home--complete with visits from a mohawk-coiffed candy striper. Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All is a marvel of narrative showmanship and proof that brilliant, emotional storytelling remains at the heart of great fiction.




Die Happy


Book Description

Attention, guys of America: It's time to get off the couch, turn off the PlayStation, and set down your beer (just kidding—never set down your beer). Your days of freedom are numbered. Every guy owes it to himself to do something audacious, ostentatious, hilarious, or just plain fun before it's too late. The time is now for the kinds of things that will be decidedly against the rules after you "settle down." Die Happy is here to help you create the kind of stories you'll be telling for the rest of your life. Stories about things like: · How you spent your graduation cash: You start at Oktoberfest in Munich and wake up on a Thai beach (which is totally what your Aunt Edith had in mind). From Fantasy Fest to La Tomatina, here's a breakdown of the wildest parties and the craziest worldwide destinations. · The best places to, ahem, explore other cultures (or whatever): Corfu's Pink Palace. Ireland's pubs. Amsterdam's Red Light District. Ibiza. Plus plenty of other fascinating events and locales, many of which also happen to serve booze. · Getting a job (don't worry, not a real job): Jet Ski guy. Cruise ship bartender. Casino dealer. Lifeguard. Roadie. Where and how to earn the money to subsidize your fun, usually in some exotic location full of very friendly women. At once a "How To," a "To Do," and a "We Did," Die Happy contains all the ideas, checklists, and insanely funny true stories you'll need to help you have as much fun as possible—while you still can.




Stripped Naked


Book Description

A woman documents her road to recovery from an abusive childhood spent with satanic cults and the dissociative identity disorder that resulted. “‘Baby’ came on the scene when I was about four years old, splitting off in a moment from the trapped and terrorized little girl that I was then in order to experience and remember the trauma that I could not handle.” —from Stripped Naked Baby is just one of Lauren’s alter personalities. In this, her latest book, she emotionally portrays Baby and several of the others whom she recently discovered operating inside of her. Each personality was created to absorb the emotional and physical pain of her abusive childhood, which included forced membership in a cult. Cult members programmed her alters to serve the cult’s objectives. Some were even programmed to punish Lauren if she exposed the cult, including punishment as severe as suicide. Stripped Naked is a viable resource for mental health professionals, clergy, law enforcement, survivors, and lay people. With humor, heart, and honesty, it describes how Lauren and her therapists meet the personalities, and it addresses the key issues of recognizing abuse and alters, and then learning how to function in everyday life. Praise for Stripped Naked “Ms. Stratford has presented the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of ritual abuse in such a systematic, well-documented way that even the most vehement nonbeliever will surely think again. I will use this book as a basic text to explain the concepts of brainwashing, programming, and mind control to judges and juries when I am called to present expert testimony in cases where ritual abuse is alleged.” —Pamela J. Monday, Ph.D., Editor Newsletter for the Society for the Investigation, Treatment, and Prevention of Ritual and Cult Abuse




You Must Be This Happy to Enter


Book Description

Features stories about such subjects as a zombie who appears on a reality TV program, a time-traveling photographer who is arrested for being happy, and a woman waiting for her adopted child to arrive.




The Finnish Way


Book Description

An engaging and practical guided tour of the simple and nature-inspired ways that Finns stay happy and healthy--including the powerful concept of sisu, or everyday courage Forget hygge--it's time to blow out the candles and get out into the world! Journalist Katja Pantzar did just that, taking the huge leap to move to the remote Nordic country of Finland. What she discovered there transformed her body, mind and spirit. In this engaging and practical guide, she shows readers how to embrace the "keep it simple and sensible" daily practices that make Finns one of the happiest populations in the world, year after year. Topics include: Movement as medicine: How walking, biking and swimming every day are good for what ails us--and best done outside the confines of a gym Natural mood boosters: Cold water swimming, steamy saunas, and other ways to alleviate stress, anxiety, insomnia, and depression Forest therapy: Why there's no substitute for getting out into nature on a regular basis Healthy eating: What the Nordic diet can teach us all about feeding body, mind and soul The gift of sisu: Why Finns embrace a special form of courage, grit and determination as a national virtue - and how anyone can dig deeper to survive and thrive through tough times. If you've ever wondered if there's a better, simpler way to find happiness and good heath, look no further. The Finns have a word for that, and this empowering book shows us how to achieve it.




The Dress


Book Description

'Glamorous, gripping and moving. I just loved it' MARIAN KEYES. Joy is beautiful, but she has a secret fear. Although she is the toast of 1950s New York Society, with everything money can buy, she is afraid that one day her beauty will fade and she will lose the love of her glamorous husband. Honor is a young seamstress, who has been working her fingers to the bone with little reward, but her luck is about to change. For her 30th birthday, Joy commissions Honor to create the the most dazzling dress ever seen. Lily has always loved vintage clothes. Thousands follow her fashion blog. One day she stumbles upon an article about a legendary evening dress, created in the 1950s, but now lost to history. She knows that she must find out more. What Lily uncovers is a story of glamour, friendship and love betrayed. The story of two women, one ruthless man – and a dress so sublime, nothing in couture would ever match it again.




Happy Baby


Book Description

Happy Baby is the story of Theo, once an orphan in the Chicago foster care system and now a grown man living in California. Theo, saturated with memories of abuse and heartache, and filled with the simple wish to understand more about himself, returns to Chicago to reconnect with an old girlfriend from his troubled youth. Told in reverse order, this edgy and powerful novel slowly and subtly turns mysterious, as we attempt to recognize the root of Theo's plight and the source for his quietly wavering humanity.