Here are the simple truths that motivate people of any age to find and accept lasting happiness, illustrated with the stories of real people, and illuminated with the observations of spiritual leaders and great philosophers. For more than three decades, attorney, financial consultant, and life coach Stephen M. Pollan has been advising clients and readers on the business of living everything from home buying and employment contracts to marriage and parenting. He has taught his clients and readers to Die Broke (use assets rather than build up an estate), to stage Second Acts (reinvent their lives), and, most recently, to Fire Your Boss (take charge of their own work lives).Throughout these books, Pollan stresses that attitudes as well as actions are essential to success. Indeed, over the years he realized that the happiest and most successful people he'd met were also those who were the most energetic and exuberant, regardless of their age. By noting these attributes and incorporating them in his own life, Pollan came to understand that our attitudes are not just one element of succeeding at the business of living, they are in fact the foundation of leading a happy life. Attitude is everything.Those attitudes most essential to our deepest satisfaction and happiness reflect what our spiritual leaders and philosophers from every major tradition have taught us. We don't have to look to external forces to validate us and give us self-worth. We already have within us all we need to find fulfillment and lead happy, satisfying lives lives without regrets. To finally be happy we need to accept responsibility for our own happiness. When we know the secrets are already inside us, all we have to do is start living them. With this book, we can begin now.

Why should you need the government’s permission to save your own lifeJenn McNary’s two sons, Max and Austin, were diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy—a fatal disorder that leads to muscle degeneration and eventually death. In a cruel and unnecessary twist, Max received access to a clinical trial; Austin didn’t. As a result, Max was able to get out of his wheelchair and play on his school soccer team while Austin continued to deteriorate until he could not even feed himself. The FDA takes as long as fifteen years to approve a new drug, demanding near-absolute proof of effectiveness before allowing commercial distribution. But this ignores the urgent plight of millions of terminally ill Americans who have run out of approved options—and are running out of time. These patients are not looking for a 100 percent guarantee that a treatment will work for them. They are looking for a fighting chance. Why can’t they have that chanceWhy don’t they have the right to try . . . the right to save their own livesAuthor and activist Darcy Olsen, president of the Goldwater Institute, tells the remarkable story behind the Right to Try movement, the national campaign to give dying Americans access to cutting-edge treatments that are under study but still years away from receiving the FDA’s green light. The men, women, and children featured in these pages are our own family members, friends, and neighbors. Their heartbreaking, triumphant, and inspirational stories prove the necessity for Right to Try laws. Because everyone deserves the Right to Try.

A girl with an eating disorder grows up. And then whatIn this groundbreaking book, science journalist Trisha Gura explodes the myth that those who suffer from eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, are primarily teenage girls. In truth, twenty-five to thirty million American women twenty-five and older suffer from serious food issues, from obsessions with calorie counting to compulsions to starve then overeat. These diseases often linger from adolescence or emerge anew in the lives of adult women in ways that we are only now starting to recognize.Drawing on her own experience with anorexia, as well as the most up-to-date research and extensive interviews with clinicians and sufferers, Gura presents a startling, timely, and imperative investigation of eating disorders "all grown up," and offers hope through understanding.

In Cuba, Castro has finally relinquished power. . . . now a mysterious exile (Che Guevara?) returns to finish the revolution. When a strange man appears in rural towns around Cuba quietly advocating a new kind of politics he calls "the True Republic," old-timers begin to suspect that the elderly stranger, who calls himself Ernesto Blanco, may actually be the martyr Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Shortly after Blanco's appearance, Fidel Castro steps down from power in exchange for a commitment from the United States to recognize Cuba and lift the crippling embargo. Two traditional parties quickly form: one is a successor to the Communist Party and the other is composed of U.S. and Mafia-backed Cuban exiles. As the True Republic movement spreads like wildfire throughout Cuba, each faction devises a plot to get rid of Ernesto Blanco by assassination if necessary.

In this provocative account of colonial America, William R. Polk explores the key events, individuals, and themes of this critical period. With vivid de*ions of the societies that people from Europe came from and with an emphasis on what they believed they were going to, Polk introduces the native Indians encountered in the New World and the black Africans who were brought across the Atlantic. With insightful analysis, he also discusses the dual truths of colonial societies' "growing up" and "growing apart." As John Adams would point out to Thomas Jefferson, the long years that witnessed the formation of our national character and the growth of our spirit of independence were indeed the real revolution. That story forms the basis of The Birth of America. In addition to its discussion of the influence the British had on the colonies, The Birth of America covers the pivotal roles played by the Spanish, French, and Dutch in early America.From the fearful crossing of the stormy Atlantic to the growth of the early settlements, to the French and Indian War and the unrest of the 1760s, William Polk brilliantly traces the progress of the colonies to the point where itwas no longer possible to recapture the past and the break with England was inevitable. America had been born.

With his inimitable sense of humor and storytelling talent, New York Times bestselling author Michael Korda brings us this charming, hilarious, self-deprecating memoir of a city couple's new life in the country.At once entertaining, canny, and moving, Country Matters does for Dutchess County, New York, what Under the Tuscan Sun did for Tuscany. This witty memoir, replete with Korda's own line drawings, reads like a novel, as it chronicles the author's transformation from city slicker to full-time country gentleman, complete with tractors, horses, and a leaking roof.When he decides to take up residence in an eighteenth-century farmhouse in Dutchess County, ninety miles north of New York City, Korda discovers what country life is really like: Owning pigs, more than owning horses, even more than owning the actual house, firmly anchored the Kordas as residents in the eyes of their Pleasant Valley neighbors. You may own your land, but without concertina barbed wire, or the 82nd Airborne on patrol, it's impossible to keep people off it! It's possible to line up major household repairs over a tuna melt sandwich. And everyone in the area is fully aware that Michael "don't know shit about septics." The locals are not particularly quick to accept these outsiders, and the couple's earliest interactions with their new neighbors provide constant entertainment, particularly when the Kordas discover that hunting season is a year-round event -- right on their own land! From their closest neighbors, mostly dairy farmers, to their unforgettable caretaker Harold Roe -- whose motto regarding the local flora is "Whack it all back! " -- the residents of Pleasant Valley eventually come to realize that the Kordas are more than mere weekenders.Sure to have readers in stitches, this is a book that has universal appeal for all who have ever dreamed of owning that perfect little place to escape to up in the country, or, more boldly, have done it.

Why is it so difficult to remain married in thetwenty-first century, and what can you do about itWe all know that half of today's marriages end in divorce, but we tend to believe that our own marriages are safe. As psychiatrist John Jacobs explains in this fresh and impassioned book, marriages today are incredibly fragile, and unless a couple understands what is making contemporary marriage so vulnerable to dissolution, the marriage is at risk.Part of the problem is that people refuse to see how social and historical forces have changed the very meaning of marriage, causing serious interpersonal unhappiness. Because of increased longevity, married people live together longer than at any time in history. There's been an erosion of the social and cultural forces that traditionally kept marriages together. Confusion over gender-role responsibilities, increased expectations of sexual satisfaction, and intense time pressures on couples to work and be successful all create marital stress.And yet, most people don't acknowledge the problems in their marriage until it is too late. We tend to believe in the "lies of marriage" -- such concepts as soul mates, unconditional love, that children improve a relationship, that the sexual revolution has made marital sex more pleasurable, or that egalitarian marriage offers couples easy solutions -- and forget to engage in the constant hardwork required to keep our marriages alive.Dr. Jacobs believes that most marriages have significant problems at some time, but until we recognize the new realities of marriage and develop the skills required to sustain a loving, intimate relationship, marriages are at risk.Of course marriage is about love. But that's just the beginning.

Renowned journalist Don Lattin, longtime reporter for the San Francisco Examiner and more recently the San Francisco Chronicle, interprets the American spiritual and religious landscape since the 60s with insight, wit, and telling reporting. What David Brooks did for the American social and commercial landscape in the bestselling Bobos In Paradise, he does for the spiritual landscape, showing how the 60s have had a profound transformative impact in every area of spirituality. This is the first comprehensive look at the spiritual legacy of the 60s and 70s, as seen through the lives of those raised amid some of the eras wildest experimentation.

Over the past decade, the stakes in youth sports have reached startling heights; the pressure to win often eclipses the desire to have fun. Sports injuries have increased tenfold; aggression on and off the field between kids, parents, and coaches is at a fever pitch; and drug and alcohol use among young athletes is on the rise. While there are plenty of books that help the best-intentioned parent, most of them are written by men, for men. They do not address concerns specific to mothers, nor empower them to confidently step onto the out-of-control playground to assume whatever role they choose spectator, advocate, administrator, coach, fund-raiser, or team mom.Home Team Advantage is an essential resource manual that will inspire women to confidently tackle some of the issues preventing their kids from enjoying sports. Brooke de Lench authoritatively covers issues ranging from ensuring playing time and confronting out-of-control coaches to countering the "winning at all costs" mentality. Packed with real-life anecdotes and information from experts, Home Team Advantage provides constructive, practical, and forward-thinking advice to help mothers understand the critical role they can play in putting the words fun, game, and play back into youth sports.

The co-author of the monumental bestseller Reengineering the Corporation continues the reengineering revolution with another national bestseller that has already sold more than 165,000 copies in hardcoverReengineering Management is a brilliant, practical and much needed book on the most powerful management idea of the decade. Reengineering changing the traditional and outdated organization, processes and culture of a company is corporate America's greatest challenge today.In Reengineering Management, Champy examines the far-reaching changes managers must make for themselves and their companies to succeed in an era of unprecedented competition. Through his extensive consulting and research work, he shows how reengineering succeeds only when managers reinvent their own jobs and managerial styles. Otherwise, the ultra-efficient and effective reengineered processes for acquiring and serving customers, filling orders, bringing new concepts to market and other key business activities eventually fall apart.Champy illustrates this new management agenda through first-hand experiences of managers of reengineered operations at Federal Express, Wisconsin Electric, CIGNA Health Care, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T Universal Card Services and other companies. Champy shows how they are mastering the managerial challenges of reengineering, and as a result are making their organizations exciting and competitive. As more and more organizations reengineer, the experiences of these managers will become an insiders' guide to managerial life in the company of the future.Reengineering Management picks up where Reengineering the Corporation left off by exploring the managerial implications of the reengineered workplace. As reengineering becomes critical to all organizations, Reengineering Management will be the road map for managerial success in the future. It is, indeed, the manifesto for the next managerial revolution.

Our neighboring planets may have the answer to this question. Scientists have already identified ice caps on Mars and what appear to be enormous oceans underneath the ice of Jupiter's moons. The atmosphere on Venus appeared harsh and insupportable of life, composed of a toxic atmosphere and oceans of acid -- until scientists concluded that Earth's atmosphere was eerily similar billions of years ago.An extraterrestrial colony, in some form, may already exist, just awaiting discovery.But the greatest impediment to such an important scientific discovery may not be technological, but political. No scientific endeavor can be launched without a budget, and matters of money are within the arena of politicians. Dr. Ben Bova explores some of the key players and the arguments waged in a debate of both scientific and cultural priorities, showing the emotions, the controversy, and the egos involved in arguably the most important scientific pursuit ever begun.

What would you do if your eighty-year-old father dragged you into his hell-bent hunt for new loveBob Morris, a seriously single son, tells you all about it in this warm, witty, and wacky chronicle of a year of dating dangerously.A few months after the death of his wife, Joe Morris, an affable, eccentric, bridge-obsessed octogenarian, starts flapping about for a replacement. If he can get a new hip, he figures, why not a new wifeAt first, his son Bob is appalled, but suspicion quickly turns to enthusiasm as he finds himself trolling the personals, screening prospects, and offering etiquette tips, chaperoning services, and post-date assessments to his needy father.Bob hopes that Joe will find a well-heeled lady or at least one who is very patient to get him out of his hair. But soon they discover that finding a new mate will not be as easy as they think: one date is too morose, another too liberal; one's a three-timer, another just needs an escort until Mr. Right comes along. Dad persists and son assists. Am I pimping for my fatherhe begins to wonder. Meanwhile, Bob suffers similar frustrations; trying to find love isn't easy in a big-city market that has little use for a middle-aged gay man with an attitude and a paunch. But with the encouragement of his father (his biggest fan and the world's "most democratic Republican") he prevails. In the end, this memoir becomes a twin love story and a soulful lesson about giving and receiving affection with an open heart.With wicked humor and a dollop of compassion, Bob Morris gleefully explores the impact of senior parents on their boomer kids and the perils of dating at any age.

Technology is not the answer. It is also not the problem. What matters insteadAwareness, Engagement, and Wisdom.Wisdom 2.0 addresses the challenge of our age:to not only live connected to one another through technology,but to do so in ways that are beneficial, effective, and useful.

He is a giant among coaches, a Hall of Famer with a legacy that spans six full decades of coaching, and arguably the greatest Division I college football coach in history. And now Bobby Bowden finally has a biography that befits his stature: Bowden by award-winning journalist and author Mike Freeman.Based on six years of research and interviews with Bowden himself, not to mention the Bowden family, former players, and opposing coaches, Bowden is the complete stunning story of the making of a legend. Despite growing up in the segregated South and witnessing the ugly racism of the time, Bowden still developed into one of the most race-sensitive coaches in college history. When sick as a child, he listened to the radio and gained a taste for war strategy and for Alabama football games on Saturdays. He played football in high school but decided he wanted to be a coach. After years of turning around smaller football programs, and following a tumultuous but successful head coaching tenure at West Virginia University, Bowden accepted the post at Florida State University (FSU), a failing program that was regularly beaten by in-state rival University of Florida. In fact, just the year before Bowden became coach, in 1975, the president of FSU contemplated terminating the program altogether, particularly because the team had won only four games in the past three years.What Bowden accomplished at FSU is nothing short of miraculous: twenty-one bowl wins and two national championships. And he was the only coach to secure a top-five ranking in the Associated Press polls for fourteen straight seasons. A brilliant tactician, he helped usher the pro passing game into college football, after initially doubting it could work on the college level. He has been an unrivaled recruiter, not only coaching his players but also becoming a surrogate father to many of them, all while producing thirty-one consensus All-Americans over the course of his tenure. He spawned one of the greatest rivalries in sports against the University of Miami. He trails only Penn State's Joe Paterno in career victories.Along the way he has had to deal with family tragedies, scandals, and the rise and fall of his three sons' coaching careers. But he has been steadfast, with his good humor intact and with Ann, his wife of sixty years, at his side, raising a family of six children and now twenty-one grandchildren. As he nears the end of his career, though, the critics have their knives out, claiming, among many other things, that he has become a dinosaur who clings to his job so that he can win more games than Paterno.This work examines the total Bowden and is the first of its kind on a one-of-a-kind coach. Poignant, blunt, and eye-opening, Bowden is a towering biography of a man who has left his mark on FSU and the game of college football.

It was an inconceivable deception: over $65 billion stolen in the world's largest Ponzi scheme. Including new and revealing interviews with those who worked closest to himand his family, Betrayal is an in-depth, penetrating look at the man who perpetrated history's most notorious financial crime. To the people who knew him, Bernie Madoff was a kind and honorable person; a loving father and husband; generous to his employees and charitable even to strangers. On Wall Street, he was known as a wise elder statesman, wildly successful in his investments but never too risky with people's money. He was so revered and trusted that thousands placed their life savings with him, and he in turn provided them with early retirements and affluent lifestyles.But on December 11, 2008, Madoff confessed that he'd lied to them all. The monthly financial statements he'd sent customers for decades were all works of fiction. Their money was gone.Despite the crush of media attention on Madoff's scam, little is known about Madoff himself. What could lead a seemingly good man to ruin the lives of everyone who ever cared about himWhat caused Bernie Madoff to commit an unspeakable act of betrayal, bankrupting his family, his friends, his mentors, and thousands of investors who depended upon him for their livelihoodsBetrayal: The Life and Lies of Bernie Madoff is about the man who realized that he could have everything he wanted if he simply lied to the people who trusted him the most. Author Andrew Kirtzman tracked down more than a hundred people from Madoff's past, from the first girl he ever kissed to family members who played in his house as children; from his secretaries to his drivers; from traders at his company to his inner circle of friends. He pored through thousands of pages of court records; private e-mails; phone-conversation tran*s; and census, military, and immigration records. The result is a fascinating story about the rise of a deeply immoral man.Kirtzman describes Madoff's feelings of inferiority and humiliation as a child, and his obsession with making money to prove himself worthy as he grew older. He reveals Madoff's construction of a criminal enterprise at a young age, long before he's ever claimed it began. He paints a picture of a loving yet strange family that ran a multibillion-dollar corporation like a small family restaurant. He offers an inside look at life within the company and the characters who worked on the infamous seventeenth floor. He reveals the details of an underground flow of cash that no one has known about until now. And he chronicles the desperate moments leading up to Madoff's fall, from the perspective of the people who spent the last hours with him before his house of cards collapsed.

Millions have visited the museums that bear her name, yet few know much about Madame Tussaud. A celebrated artist, she had both a ringside seat at and a cameo role in the French Revolution. A victim and survivor of one of the most tumultuous times in history, this intelligent, pragmatic businesswoman has also had an indelible impact on contemporary culture, planting the seed of our obsession with celebrity. In Madame Tussaud, Kate Berridge tells this fascinating woman's complete story for the first time, drawing upon a wealth of sources, including Tussaud's memoirs and historical archives. It is a grand-scale success story, revealing how with sheer graft and grit a woman born in 1761 to an eighteen-year-old cook overcame extraordinary reversals of fortune to build the first and most enduring worldwide brand identified simply by reference to its founder's name: Madame Tussaud's.

Brad Gooch, the author of the acclaimed City Poet, returns with a searing memoir of life in 1980s New York City. Brad Gooch arrived in New York in the 1970s, eager for artistic and personal freedom. Smash Cut is his bold and intimate memoir of this exhilarating time and place, complete with its cast of wild bohemians, celebrities, and budding artists, such as Robert Mapplethorpe, William Burroughs, and Madonna. At its center is his love affair with film director Howard Brookner, recreated from fragments of memory and a crosshatch of conflicting emotions, from innocent romance to bleak despair. Gooch and Brookner’s intense relationship is challenged by sex and drugs, and by a culture of extreme experimentation. As both men try to reconcile love and fidelity with the irresistible desire to sample the legendary abandon of the era, they live together and apart. Gooch works briefly as a model in Milan, then returns to the city and discovers his vocation as a writer. Brookner falls ill with a mysterious virus that soon has a terrifying name: AIDS. And the story, and life in the city, is suddenly overshadowed by this new plague that will ravage a generation and transform the creative world. Gooch charts the progress of Brookner through his illness, and writes unforgettably about endings: of a great talent, a passionate love affair, and an incandescent era. Beautifully written, full of rich detail and poignant reflection, recalling a city and particular period and group of friends with affection and clarity, Smash Cut is an extraordinary memoir and an exquisite unflinching account of an epoch.

When Muhammad Ali met Joe Frazier in Manila for their third fight, their rivalry had spun out of control. The Ali-Frazier matchup had become a madness, inflamed by the media and the politics of race. When the "Thrilla in Manila" was over, one man was left with a ruin of a life; the other was battered to his soul. Mark Kram covered that fight for Sports Illustrated in an award-winning article. Now his riveting book reappraises the boxers -- who they are and who they were. And in a voice as powerful as a heavyweight punch, Kram explodes the myths surrounding each fighter, particularly Ali. A controversial, no-holds-barred account, Ghosts of Manila ranks with the finest boxing books ever written.

Kinky Friedman is back, and with 'Scuse Me While I Whip This Out he gets it on with all manner of egos. In this collection of twisted takes on life, the Kinkster gives us funny, irreverent, and insightful looks at outsized personalities from people he's known, like Bill Clinton, George W., Willie Nelson, and Bob Dylan -- not to mention Joseph Heller and Don Imus -- to people he's known in spirit, such as Moses, Jesus, Jack Ruby, and Hank Williams. With his meditations on subjects ranging from sleeping at the White House, marriage, his pets, fishing in Borneo, country music, and cigars to the tribulations of possessing talent, Kinky doesn't deny us the "flashes of brilliance and laugh-out-loud observations" (Rocky Mountain News) that are present in all his other work. Hilarious, irreverent, and passionately twisted, 'Scuse Me While I Whip This Out reads as if it were written by a slightly ill modern-day Mark Twain.

"A romantic comedy that's fun and flirty, young and fresh." – Popsugar (22 of the Best Books This Winter Has to Offer)One of Oprah Magazine's 21 Romance Novels That Are Set to Be the Best of 2020!Mia Sosa delivers a sassy, steamy #ownvoices enemies-to-lovers novel, perfect for fans of Jasmine Guillory, Helen Hoang, and Sally Thorne! A wedding planner left at the altar? Yeah, the irony isn’t lost on Carolina Santos, either. But despite that embarrassing blip from her past, Lina’s offered an opportunity that could change her life. There’s just one hitch… she has to collaborate with the best (make that worst) man from her own failed nuptials. Marketing expert Max Hartley is determined to make his mark with a coveted hotel client looking to expand its brand. Then he learns he’ll be working with his brother’s whip-smart, stunning—absolutely off-limits—ex-fiancée. And she loathes him. If they can nail their presentation without killing each other, they’ll both come out ahead. Except Max has been public enemy number one ever since he encouraged his brother to jilt the bride, and Lina’s ready to dish out a little payback of her own. Soon Lina and Max discover animosity may not be the only emotion creating sparks between them. Still, this star-crossed couple can never be more than temporary playmates because Lina isn’t interested in falling in love and Max refuses to play runner-up to his brother ever again...

A terminally ill man sells his life insurance policy for cheap to an investor who will collect the full amount when the sick man dies.But is the sick man really sickDoes he even existIn the age of AIDS and no-holds-barred capitalism, the business of betting on how much longer sick people will live is thriving. Is this new market in which life insurance policies are bought and sold a legitimate enterprise, or is it an open invitation to fraud and murder?Carver Hartnett, Miranda Pryor, and Leonard Stillmach all work for Reliable Allied Trust, in Omaha, where they investigate insurance fraud. Carver -- the narrator of this edgy and surprising novel -- is frustrated. His company would rather raise premiums than prosecute insurance criminals. Miranda, his seductive coworker, leads him on and then puts him off -- she seems to have something monstrous to hide. When their friend, crazy Lenny, a computer gamer and an expert with drug-and-alcohol cocktails, dies in the middle of playing Delta-Strike online, a strange and disturbing narrative unfolds around a possible murder and massive insurance fraud. Carver is drawn deeper into various hearts of darkness, and in his efforts to discover the truth behind his friend's death, he ends up betting his own life.Filled with memorable characterizations -- Carver's boss, the shrewd Old Man Norton; Dagmar Helveg, Norton's fascist assistant; regional investigator Charlie Becker, a plain-talking, commonsense cop -- Bet Your Life conducts a stealthy philosophical investigation of its own, in which our hero ends up investigating the mysteries of his soul.