“Filled with forgiveness and love, and a story of rebirth and transformation that recognizes our deepest fears and hurt, and offers a path to healing.” --John de Graaf, co-author of AFFLUENZA and co-founder of the Happiness Alliance In When Life Blows Up, Cylvia takes the reader on an intimate, vulnerable journey through a devastating public shaming that destroyed her business, countless relationships and even her personal sense of identity. Through the long annihilation of who she believed herself to be she discovered the True Self she hadn’t yet met and opened to new opportunities she hadn’t known existed. This book offers insights and practical tools for anyone experiencing loss, grief, and unexpected life upheaval, and who may be struggling with personal identity and purpose. It offers proven strategies for: • MANAGING FEAR EVEN IN CRISIS • FINDING POWER IN SURRENDER • HARNESSING FORGIVENESS • RELEASING SHAME AND GUILT • REENTERING CAREER, COMMUNITY AND LIFE WITH INTENTION AND POWER This book is an inspiring guide for moving from surviving to thriving, from breaking down to breaking open. It is for all those phoenixes on the rise committed to harnessing hardship to grow into more peaceful, powerful beings. “This book can serve as an inspiration for anyone who feels that they can’t possibly get up after life has knocked them down.” -- John Kitzhaber, former Oregon Governor “When Life Blows Up” is a living testimony to the power of forgiveness and the healing available when we allow Wholly Spirit to guide our lives. … I think many readers will be in turn relating, wondering, and hopeful.” -- Rev. Jane Hiatt, Senior Minister, Unity Community of Central Oregon CYLVIA HAYES is an award winning public speaker, empowerment coach, new economy strategist, professional environmentalist and former First Lady of Oregon. She is founder and CEO of 3EStrategies and Cylvia Hayes Enterprises. She is also a minister-in-training with Unity Worldwide Ministries. Cylvia lives in Bend, Oregon with a home and backyard like a wildlife sanctuary. Her greatest loves are her life partner, John, her son, Jonathan, dogs, horses, hiking and camping and all things Nature.

From New York Times best-selling authors Michael I. Bennett, MD and Sarah Bennett--a book for teens that shows readers that we all deal with crap in our lives and how to laugh at some of the things we can't control. Being a teenager can suck. Your friends can become enemies, and your enemies can become friends. Your family can drive you crazy. School and teachers can be a drag. Your body is constantly changing. And everyone seems to tell you to "just be you." But just who is that? With their open and honest approach, father-daughter team Michael I. Bennett and Sarah Bennett's book is sure to appeal to teenagers and show them they aren't alone in dealing with fake friends, with parents who think they're "hip," and even how high school isn't everyone's glory days. Young readers--and their parents--are sure to find this no-nonsense, real-life advice helpful, and it will help them realize that it's okay to talk to their parents and other advisors around them about big issues that might be uncomfortable to discuss.

A respected journalist describes the abuse he suffered at the hands of a close family relative, the effect this had on his formative years and how he overcame the anger and self-doubt it left behind.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anathem, Reamde, and Cryptonomicon comes an exciting and thought-provoking science fiction epic—a grand story of annihilation and survival spanning five thousand years. What would happen if the world were ending? A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space. But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain . . . Five thousand years later, their progeny—seven distinct races now three billion strong—embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown . . . to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth. A writer of dazzling genius and imaginative vision, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, technology, psychology, and literature in a magnificent work of speculative fiction that offers a portrait of a future that is both extraordinary and eerily recognizable. As he did in Anathem, Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and Reamde, Stephenson explores some of our biggest ideas and perplexing challenges in a breathtaking saga that is daring, engrossing, and altogether brilliant.

At the height of the ideological antagonism of the Cold War, the U.S. State Department unleashed an unexpected tool in its battle against Communism: jazz. From 1956 through the late 1970s, America dispatched its finest jazz musicians to the far corners of the earth, from Iraq to India, from the Congo to the Soviet Union, in order to win the hearts and minds of the Third World and to counter perceptions of American racism. Penny Von Eschen escorts us across the globe, backstage and onstage, as Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and other jazz luminaries spread their music and their ideas further than the State Department anticipated. Both in concert and after hours, through political statements and romantic liaisons, these musicians broke through the government's official narrative and gave their audiences an unprecedented vision of the black American experience. In the process, new collaborations developed between Americans and the formerly colonized peoples of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East--collaborations that fostered greater racial pride and solidarity. Though intended as a color-blind promotion of democracy, this unique Cold War strategy unintentionally demonstrated the essential role of African Americans in U.S. national culture. Through the tales of these tours, Von Eschen captures the fascinating interplay between the efforts of the State Department and the progressive agendas of the artists themselves, as all struggled to redefine a more inclusive and integrated American nation on the world stage.

'Blown to Bits' is about how the digital explosion is changing everything. The text explains the technology, why it creates so many surprises and why things often don't work the way we expect them to. It is also about things the information explosion is destroying: old assumptions about who is really in control of our lives.