The longer WorldCom Chief Audit Executive Cynthia Cooper stares at the entries in front of her, the more sinister they seem. But the CFO is badgering her to delay her team's audit of the company's books and directing others to block Cooper's efforts. Still, something in the pit of her stomach tells her to keep digging. Cooper takes readers behind the scenes on a riveting, real-time journey as she and her team work at night and behind closed doors to expose the largest fraud in corporate history. Whom can they trust? Could she lose her job? Should she fear for her physical safety? In Extraordinary Circumstances, she recounts for the first time her journey from her close family upbringing in a small Mississippi town, to working motherhood and corporate success, to the pressures of becoming a whistleblower, to being named one of Time's 2002 Persons of the Year. She also provides a rare insider's glimpse into the spectacular rise and fall of WorldCom, a telecom titan, the darling of Wall Street, and a Cinderella story for Mississippi. With remarkable candor, Cooper discusses her struggle to overcome these challenges, and how she has found healing through sharing the lessons learned with the next generation. This book reminds us all that ethical decision-making is not forged at the crossroads of major events but starts in childhood, "decision by decision and brick by brick." At a time when corporate dishonesty is dominating public attention, Extraordinary Circumstances makes it clear that the tone set at the top is critical to fostering an ethical environment in the work-place. Provocative, moving, and intensely personal, Extraordinary Circumstances is a wake-up call to corporate leaders and an intimate glimpse at a scandal that shook the business world.

"Told with brains and heart" —Michelle Gable, New York Times bestselling author of A Paris Apartment "Bristles with charm and curiosity" —Winston Groom, New York Times bestselling author of Forrest Gump "A wholly original and superbly crafted work of art, Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance is a masterpiece of the imagination." —Lori Nelson Spielman, New York Times bestselling author of The Life List and Sweet Forgiveness "Charlotte's Web for grown-ups who, like Weylyn Grey, have their own stories of being different, feared, brave, and loved." —Mo Daviau, author of Every Anxious Wave Ruth Emmie Lang teaches us how to find magic in the ordinary in her magical realism debut Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance. Orphaned, raised by wolves, and the proud owner of a horned pig named Merlin, Weylyn Grey knew he wasn’t like other people. But when he single-handedly stopped that tornado on a stormy Christmas day in Oklahoma, he realized just how different he actually was. As amazing as these powers may appear, they tend to manifest themselves at inopportune times and places, jeopardizing not only his own life, but the life of Mary, the woman he loves. Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance tells the story of Weylyn Grey’s life from the perspectives of the people who knew him, loved him, and even a few who thought he was just plain weird. Although he doesn’t stay in any of their lives for long, he leaves each of them with a story to tell: great storms that evaporate into thin air; fireflies that make phosphorescent honey; a house filled with spider webs and the strange man who inhabits it. There is one story, however, that Weylyn wishes he could change: his own. But first he has to muster enough courage to knock on Mary’s front door.

A fascinating, behind-the-scenes documentary record of Gerald Ford's presidency by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer David Hume Kennerly.

At the age of nine, Scott Berne's childhood teetered on the edge of a precipice. His parents' nasty divorce and the painful custody battle that followed created an upheaval unlike anything he'd ever known. But when his mother's precarious mental health led the judge to give sole custody of Scott and his younger brother to his father, the unthinkable happened-Harriet Berne kidnapped her two boys. Extraordinary Circumstances shares the tumultuous true story of what became one of the first test cases of parental abduction in the United States under the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act. With remarkable candor and insight, Scott recalls the terror, fear, and despair he experienced as his mother moved him and his brother through five countries and thirteen residences in an attempt to stay one step ahead of the authorities. The case attracted national and international media attention, culminating in Harriet's capture in 1981. For years to come, the ordeal continued for Scott as he dealt with emotional wounds far worse than any physical pain. Yet he refused to succumb to pity, and he became determined to share his story with those suffering a similar fate. With a unique mixture of childhood innocence and adult sensibility, Extraordinary Circumstances explores Scott's dramatic journey from victim to victor.

A detailed history of the American Civil War’s first campaign in Virginia in 1862. The first campaign in the Civil War in which Robert E. Lee led the Army of Northern Virginia, the Seven Days Battles were fought southeast of the Confederate capital of Richmond in the summer of 1862. Lee and his fellow officers, including “Stonewall” Jackson, James Longstreet, A. P. Hill, and D. H. Hill, pushed George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac from the gates of Richmond to the James River, where the Union forces reached safety. Along the way, Lee lost several opportunities to harm McClellan. The Seven Days have been the subject of numerous historical treatments, but none more detailed and engaging than Brian K. Burton’s retelling of the campaign that lifted Southern spirits, began Lee’s ascent to fame, and almost prompted European recognition of the Confederacy. “A thoroughly researched and well-written volume that will surely be the starting point for those interested in this particular campaign.” —Journal of American History “A welcome addition to scholarship that should be the standard work on its subject for some time to come.” —Journal of Military History “Plenty of good maps . . . help the reader follow the course of the campaign. . . . Burton does not neglect the role of the common soldiers . . . [and]provides thorough and reasonable analyses of the commanders on both sides.” —Georgia Historical Quarterly “A full and measured account marked by a clear narrative and an interesting strategy of alternating the testimony of generals with their grand plans and the foot soldiers who had to move, shoot, and communicate in the smokey underbrush.” —The Virginia Magazine

With a fine-tuned ethnographic sensibility, Janis H. Jenkins explores the lived experience of psychosis, trauma, and depression among people of diverse cultural orientations, revealing how mental illness engages fundamental human processes of self, desire, gender, identity, attachment, and interpretation. Extraordinary Conditions illuminates the cultural shaping of extreme psychological suffering and the social rendering of the mentally ill as nonhuman or not fully human. Jenkins contends that mental illness is better characterized in terms of struggle than symptoms and that culture is central to all aspects of mental illness from onset to recovery. Her analysis refashions the boundaries between the ordinary and the extraordinary, the routine and the extreme, and the healthy and the pathological. This book asserts that the study of mental illness is indispensable to the anthropological understanding of culture and experience, and reciprocally that understanding culture and experience is critical to the study of mental illness.

Former TOPGUN instructor, Navy Ace, and award-winning commercial real estate salesman Bill Driscoll offers business leaders results-proven principles to compete in the fast-paced, global enterprise that is today's business world. For Peak Performance Under Pressure: How to Achieve Extraordinary Results Under the Most Difficult Circumstances, he interviewed more than 200 senior executives and 26 Aces to show readers how to make critical decisions under intense pressure; build strong, dedicated teams; maintain steadfast focus on their mission; and model the integrity and constancy they expect from their staffs while facing rapidly changing problems. In Peak Performance Under Pressure, Driscoll uses the following six-element formula to keep leaders winning while tackling the most high-pressure conditions: Planning + Preparation + Focus + Assessment + Improvement + Self-Discipline = Peak Performance These six tools helped Driscoll keep his head and make split-second decisions through 170 combat missions, 5,200 jet dogfights, and 510 aircraft carrier landings as an Ace fighter pilot. Chapter 1 outlines each of the six elements in the Peak Performance Formula, how that formula enables Ace fighter pilots to win no matter what and how their methods can work for business leaders. This chapter's assessment enables the reader to quickly identify his or her own peak performance challenges. In chapter 2, the reader learns essential techniques for creating winning plans, including a targeted overview of the three must-have elements in any successful business plan, and a logical four-step approach to using a daily action plan to accomplish strategic, operational, and tactical goals. Chapter 3 outlines some concrete steps for mastering the five levels of essential preparation for both team and personal success and for building the kind of physical, emotional, and psychological readiness that will help the reader overcome his or her biggest challenges and toughest competition in any arena. Chapter 4 takes a close look at the Aces' techniques for developing and maintaining laser-beam focus and attention to detail, and it offers a simple, three-step process for adopting those techniques to boost personal and team performance. In chapter 5, the reader learns why ongoing assessment is essential to attaining peak performance, some easy-to-follow methods for assessing performance and that of a team, and how to infuse an organization with the kind of essential accountability necessary to establish standards of excellence, gain customer trust, and improve outcomes in every aspect of the operation. Chapter 6 offers specific tools and techniques for making ongoing improvements in the reader's personal, team, and organizational performance. From improving self-discipline to acing key leadership skills, building confidence, and expanding one's sphere of influence, the skills learned in this chapter help the reader become a more effective decision maker, in any environment and under any level of pressure. Chapter 7 pulls together the "training program," as it outlines how the reader's ability to consistently adhere to the Peak Performance Formula enables him or her to face down some of the most common workplace ambushes and respond expertly to any rapidly evolving challenge. Here, the reader learns some simple principles for integrating the ideas and practices gained in the book into a never-fail plan for surviving and thriving both personally and professionally.