How do you fight despair and learn to meet the world with a loving heart? How do you overcome shame? Stay faithful in spite of failure? No matter where people live or what their circumstances may be, everyone needs boundless, restorative love. Gorgeous and uplifting, Tattoos on the Heart amply demonstrates the impact unconditional love can have on your life. As a pastor working in a neighborhood with the highest concentration of murderous gang activity in Los Angeles, Gregory Boyle created an organization to provide jobs, job training, and encouragement so that young people could work together and learn the mutual respect that comes from collaboration. Tattoos on the Heart is a breathtaking series of parables distilled from his twenty years in the barrio. Arranged by theme and filled with sparkling humor and glowing generosity, these essays offer a stirring look at how full our lives could be if we could find the joy in loving others and in being loved unconditionally. From giant, tattooed Cesar, shopping at JCPenney fresh out of prison, we learn how to feel worthy of God’s love. From ten-year-old Lula we learn the importance of being known and acknowledged. From Pedro we understand the kind of patience necessary to rescue someone from the darkness. In each chapter we benefit from Boyle’s wonderful, hard-earned wisdom. Inspired by faith but applicable to anyone trying to be good, these personal, unflinching stories are full of surprising revelations and observations of the community in which Boyle works and of the many lives he has helped save. Erudite, down-to-earth, and utterly heartening, these essays about universal kinship and redemption are moving examples of the power of unconditional love in difficult times and the importance of fighting despair. With Gregory Boyle’s guidance, we can recognize our own wounds in the broken lives and daunting struggles of the men and women in these parables and learn to find joy in all of the people around us. Tattoos on the Heart reminds us that no life is less valuable than another.

CALIFORNIA, 1973. After being awarded a scholarship to attend an elite boarding school in Ojai, California, fifteen-year-old Isaiah Issacson is plucked from his inner-city Oakland neighborhood and thrust into a newand frightening atmosphere. But Isaiah doesnt embrace this new life. Most of the students at Chadwick are rich, spoiled, and white. Unfortunately, his parents, Southern-born and part of the 1950s exodus by African Americans to the West Coast, view Isaiahs scholarship as an opportunity to fulfill Martin Luther Kings dreams of racial and educational equality. Too bad Isaiah doesnt see it that way. Coming from a drastically different background, Isaiah has a difficult time relating to any of the students, and he soon clashes with instructors and fellow classmates. After he meets the beautiful and intelligent Jenaye Gardner and begins a promising love affair, things begin to spiral more out of control. Isaiah has only one goal in mind: to get kicked out of the most elite boarding school in California. Fifteen years later. Isaiah is at a turning point in his life, successful in business, he has the opportunity to attend the Chadwick reunion, and to reconnect with his first love. Will this be the beginning of the next chapter in his life?

One sunny afternoon in 1982, a young businessman experienced a terrifying mugging in New York City that shook him to his core. Tortured by nightmares about the teens who roughed him up, Steve Mariotti sought counseling. When his therapist suggested that he face his fears, Mariotti closed his small import-export business and became a teacher at the city's most notorious public school--Boys and Girls High in Bed-Stuy. Although his nightmares promptly ceased, Mariotti's out-of-control students rapidly drove him to despair. One day, Mariotti stepped out of the classroom so his students wouldn't see him cry. In a desperate move to save his job, he took off his watch and marched back in with an impromptu sales pitch for it. To his astonishment, his students were riveted. He was able to successfully lead a math lesson for the first time. Mariotti realized his students felt trapped in soul-crushing poverty. They saw zero connection between school and improving their lives. Whenever Mariotti connected their lessons to entrepreneurship, though, even his most disruptive students got excited about learning. School administrators disapproved of Mariotti discussing money in the classroom, however. He was repeatedly fired before receiving one last-ditch assignment: an offsite program for special-ed students expelled from the public schools for violent crimes. The success Mariotti had with these forgotten children—including coverage in the Daily News, The New York Times, and World News Tonight—inspired him to found the nonprofit Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship to bring entrepreneurship education to low-income youth. By turns tragic and hilarious, Goodbye Homeboy shares Mariotti's flaws and missteps as he connects deeply with his troubled students, and woos the most influential people in the world into helping them—saving himself in the process. Today, Mariotti is widely recognized as the world's leading advocate for entrepreneurship education. More than one million young people from Chicago to China have graduated from NFTE programs, and NFTE counts Sean Combs, Chelsea Clinton, Diana Davis Spencer, and many more business, entertainment, and community leaders among its staunchest supporters. As Goodbye Homeboy powerfully illustrates, a spark of hope really can empower us to overcome life's greatest hardships.

This is the riveting sequel the tale of a truly lost soul, just as many of us are. Lil House's slain father was a gangsta, even his grandfather was ruthless back in the day before he accepted Christ into his life and changed his ways. Yet as the saying goes, those who fail to learn from the past are destined to repeat it. And the definition of insanity is merely doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results! Lil House is no exception to the rules of the game. Deep emotions will surface, family secrets will be revealed, and the path of right and wrong will be crossed, this coming of age saga in which you have a front row seat to embark on. The decision to be detoured from Da Life will be answered, sexual fantasies will become realities, lives will be lost.

Jennings Kavenaugh, a thirty-year-old bachelor who likes flashy suits and shoes, is a pit boss at the Royal Flush Casino in Detroit. It has taken him thirteen years to make the climb up the casino ladder to his current role of accounting for the winners and losers. But Jennings has just one problem-he hates gamblers who cannot stop gambling. Jennings has a reason for all his hatred for addicted gamblers: his father committed suicide over his own gambling debts. Years later, Jennings is still haunted by the memories, and now all of his efforts to rebuild his life are about to disintegrate. When a casino guest leaves her young children at home alone while she visits the casino to try her luck, Jennings snaps. Enraged at her selfish act, he makes an impulsive decision that changes his life forever. In a thriller that takes twists and turns through the unpredictable world of risk, high stakes, and compulsion, a serial killer is unleashed and will not stop until his mission is complete.

How to build wealth the smart way—slow and steady This book will show you how to take control of your finances and grow your wealth using nothing more than a few key principles and commonsense wisdom. It shows you how to let go of easy excuses, stop waiting around for magically simple solutions, set intelligent financial goals, and design an action plan that you can follow through to completion. Using a storytelling approach, it shares the financial experiences of the author and her clients, guiding readers through the tools and tactics necessary to effect positive financial change in their lives. Although focused on personal finance goals, the lessons here easily translate to life itself.

Good Dream Gone Bad is a story about a well-off family living in Dallas that has it all in the beginning: love, peace, happiness and wealth. That is, until the unexpected begins to happen. Travis Larson is a devoted husband and father who goes out of his way to make sure his family has everything they need to be happy. His beautiful wife Millicent, despite chaotic and unthinkable episodes surrounding family members does her best to keep the family together by all means. Tracee and Miles are their two kids destined for college until they make bad decisions.