A Man Who Found the Meaning of Life in a Solitary Cell . . .Who Fought His Way Up from Rock Bottom to Win Wealth and Success! Bill Sands was doing three consecutive life terms in San Quentin by his nineteenth birthday. He admitted that he was on his way to committing murder if he hadn’t been stopped. Thirty years later he was a successful businessman, a famous speaker and the author of a bestselling book. Along the way he had been a pilot, a boxer, a comedian, and a diamond miner. Bill Sands died in 1969, but he left behind as his legacy this exciting story of his life so that others could benefit from his incredible experiences. Bill Sands was a devoted follower of Napoleon Hill, an author and advisor to two Presidents who devoted his life to creating a formula for success. This formula consisted of seventeen principles that anyone can learn. Here in Sands’ bestselling life story, he demonstrates the power of applying Hill’s formula for success. This edition contains a special introduction explaining exactly which of Hill’s principles Sands used—or abused. My Shadow Ran Fast is the incredible story of a remarkable man—an ex-convict actively engaged in prison reform work and in the rehabilitation of criminals. Learn how to unleash your power to control your life just as Bill Sands did. Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, you can achieve! "An excellent portrayal of a very mixed-up and dangerous young man. I highly recommend this book."-CLINTON T. DUFFY, FORMER WARDEN OF SAN QUENTIN PRISON

Theodore Hamm uses the 1960 execution of Caryl Chessman as a lens for examining how politics and debates about criminal justice became a volatile mix that ignited postwar California. The effects of those years continue to be felt as the state's three-strikes law and expanding prison-construction program spark heated arguments over rehabilitation and punishment. Known as the Red Light Bandit, Chessman allegedly stalked lovers' lanes in Los Angeles. Eventually convicted of rape and kidnapping, he was sentenced to death in 1948. In prison he gained significant notoriety as a writer, beginning with his autobiographical Cell 2455 Death Row (1954). In the following years Chessman presented himself not only as an innocent man but also as one rehabilitated from his prior life of crime. He acquired an enthusiastic audience among leading criminologists, liberal intellectuals, and ordinary citizens, many of whom engaged in protests to halt Chessman's execution. Hamm analyzes how Chessman convinced thousands of Californians to support him, and why Governor Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, who opposed the death penalty, allowed the execution to go forward. He also demonstrates the intrinsic limits of the popular commitment to the rehabilitative ideal. Rebel and a Cause places the Chessman case in a broad cultural and historical context, relating it to histories of prison reform, the anti-death penalty movement, the popularization of psychology, and the successive rise and decline of the New Left and the more enduring rise of the New Right.

This book, which describes the author’s one man crusade for a new penal rehabilitation program, known as The Seventh Step, takes you right into the drama of prison life. In 1963, Bill Sands, an ex convict, and the Reverend James Post formulated a self- help group in the Kansas State Prison. This first pre-release program adopted a slogan and guidelines that are the basis of The Seventh Step programs today. This was a danger-charged mission of an ex-inmate at San Quentin who crashed the Main Yard to prepare convicts for life in the “squarejohn” world—to help them go outside—and stay out. Faced with the hopelessness of the men who had been parolled but not released because no one would hire them, getting the men to face themselves and the outside world realistically, knowing about the inmates’ desire for revenge, all had to be channeled into an overwhelming desire for freedom. Their stories are fascinating and inspiring. Tremendously successful, the program reduced the number of men returning to prison for crimes committed after their release from 80% to 20% and spawned Seventh Step chapters across the United States. “a shocking chronicle of prison life . . . fascinating.” —BIRMINGHAM NEWS “I think it is a great book and I found it full of inspiration.” —NORMAN VINCENT PEALE

Addiction is real. The fate of broken lives as a result of addiction is real. Rock bottom is real. Death is real. Freedom is real. Faith and recovery are real. In this memoir, author Luke Tougas details his real struggle with addiction. Tougas, a five-year psychology major, finds himself caught in the vicious cycle of alcoholism. Ashamed and distraught, he attempts to heal himself without anyone knowing of his addiction. Meet My Shadow follows Tougas as he sees a psychiatrist where he puts on a mask and pays to lie. He tells of meeting his first love and breaking her heart. And he tells of failure after failure of self-help methods and finding himself at rock bottom. Tougas writes about laying defeated on the bathroom floor facing two choices: keeping his secret, dropping out of school, losing his job, and watching his life fade; or revealing his secret, admitting defeat, and seeking guidance from the only ones who can help himAlcoholics Anonymous. Meet My Shadow captures the in-depth effects and struggles of addiction. It follows Tougas on his journey from self-torture and despair to conquering his alcohol addiction with courage.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK The long-awaited autobiography from Georgetown University’s legendary coach, whose life on and off the basketball court threw America’s unresolved struggle with racial justice into sharp relief. John Thompson was never just a basketball coach and I Came As A Shadow is categorically not just a basketball autobiography. After five decades at the center of race and sports in America, Thompson—the iconic NCAA champion, Black activist, and educator—was ready to make the private public at last, and he completed this autobiography shortly before his death in the historically tumultuous summer of 2020. Chockful of stories and moving beyond mere stats (three Final Fours, four-time national coach of the year, seven Big East championships, 97 percent graduation rate), Thompson’s book drives us through his childhood under Jim Crow segregation to our current moment of racial reckoning. We experience riding shotgun with Celtics icon Red Auerbach and coaching NBA Hall of Famers like Patrick Ewing and Allen Iverson. What were the origins of the the phrase “Hoya Paranoia”? You’ll see. And parting his veil of secrecy, Thompson brings us into his negotiation with a D.C. drug kingpin in his players’ orbit in the 1980s, as well as behind the scenes of his years on the Nike board. Thompson’s mother was a teacher who had to clean houses because of racism in the nation's capital. His father could not read or write. Their son grew up to be a man with his own larger-than-life statue in a building that bears his family’s name on a campus once kept afloat by the selling of 272 enslaved Black people. This is a great American story, and John Thompson’s experience sheds light on many of the issues roiling our nation. In these pages, he proves himself to be the elder statesman whose final words college basketball and the country need to hear. I Came As A Shadow is not a swan song, but a bullhorn blast from one of America’s most prominent sons.