What happens when a successful husband, father, business exec working for George Lucas flogging Star Wars merchandise suffers a precipitous hearing loss so severe it renders him deaf? In short order, he loses his job, his house, his family, and his mind. But when an old college girl friend contacts him out of the blue, happiness seems right around the corner until he learns that the woman he's fallen in love with twice harbors a secret so devastating it threatens to destroy them both. In the tradition of such true, hair-raising, accounts as Girl, Interrupted, and A Million Little Pieces, Hear Today, Gone Tomorrow: A True Story of Love, Hearing Loss, Heartbreak and Redemption shows how one man's struggle with sudden, adult onset deafness eventually leads to a richer, more meaningful life. Hear Today not only speaks to the human condition, but demonstrates that when faced with a curve in the road so severe it threatens a crack-up, it's possible to face life with wit, compassion, and grace-saving humor.

Echoes of empire -- The little boy who couldn't say sorry -- With the Gurkhas -- Cambridge and marriage -- Warburg : the city revolution started -- Traumas at the Treasury -- The first Thatcher government -- Upsetting the Navy -- Falklands : the first week -- Falklands : landing and victory -- Lazard : the city revolution completed -- Return to the plough -- Appendix: speech to the House of Commons.

Church leaders are frustrated Larger churches are bogged down by the weight of their own organizations, and smaller churches struggle with an inability to get things moving. Veteran leadership expert Gary L. McIntosh provides help to leaders of churches, regardless of size, who struggle to create workable plans to move their congregations forward. This book identifies the best practices on how to assess the unique identity of a church and design a plan for its future. Loaded with case studies, resources, and chapter-by-chapter action plans, this practical resource contains everything a pastor needs to understand the planning process; identify the churches mission, values, and goals; and put it all together in a plan that works in the local setting.

Snapshots from 40 years on the road-Austin and back

The beginning band has a concert coming up, and Suzanne convinces Katie that she has to look her best for the big night. And that includes a new haircut from Cherrydale's newest - and sparkliest - hair salon. But when the magic wind switcheroos Katie into Suzanne's stylist right before Suzanne's own cut, Katie is left in one hairy situation!

“A galvanizing exposé” of America’s trash problem from plastic in the ocean to “wasteful packaging, bogus recycling, and flawed landfills and incinerators” (Booklist, starred review). Eat a take-out meal, buy a pair of shoes, or read a newspaper, and you’re soon faced with a bewildering amount of garbage. The United States is the planet’s number-one producer of trash. Each American throws out 4.5 pounds daily. But garbage is also a global problem. Today, the Pacific Ocean contains six times more plastic waste than zooplankton. How did we end up with this much rubbish, and where does it all go? Journalist and filmmaker Heather Rogers answers these questions by taking readers on a grisly and fascinating tour through the underworld of garbage. Gone Tomorrow excavates the history of rubbish handling from the nineteenth century to the present, pinpointing the roots of today’s waste-addicted society. With a “lively authorial voice,” Rogers draws connections between modern industrial production, consumer culture, and our throwaway lifestyle (New York Press). She also investigates the politics of recycling and the export of trash to poor countries, while offering a potent argument for change. “A clear-thinking and peppery writer, Rogers presents a galvanizing exposé of how we became the planet’s trash monsters. . . . [Gone Tomorrow] details everything that is wrong with today’s wasteful packaging, bogus recycling, and flawed landfills and incinerators. . . . Rogers exhibits black-belt precision.” —Booklist, starred review

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow is a travelogue with a difference. Two retired women set off in a campervan from London to tour Europe. Neither has driven a campervan before, much less had any experience driving on the right. They journey through four countries and cover 4,000 miles, often bewildered by one-way systems and rapid changes of language, yet meeting kindness wherever they go. The women’s varied and often bizarre escapades make for entertaining reading from start to finish. They experience being locked in an underground toilet in France, finding distant relatives in Germany quite by chance, and spending a frightening night freedom camping on the Riviera. For those who love to read about the touring experiences of others, and are pining to get out on the open road themselves, it’s all here in this true and eccentric account.