The daughter of a colonel in the army of the Shah of Iran describes her privileged early childhood, her father's arrest and execution, and her mother's decision to divide the family until they could start a new life together in the United States.

#1 New York Times Bestseller “Funny and smart as hell” (Bill Gates), Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half showcases her unique voice, leaping wit, and her ability to capture complex emotions with deceptively simple illustrations. FROM THE PUBLISHER: Every time Allie Brosh posts something new on her hugely popular blog Hyperbole and a Half the internet rejoices. This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features more than fifty percent new content, with ten never-before-seen essays and one wholly revised and expanded piece as well as classics from the website like, “The God of Cake,” “Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving,” and her astonishing, “Adventures in Depression,” and “Depression Part Two,” which have been hailed as some of the most insightful meditations on the disease ever written. Brosh’s debut marks the launch of a major new American humorist who will surely make even the biggest scrooge or snob laugh. We dare you not to. FROM THE AUTHOR: This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative—like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it—but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book: Pictures Words Stories about things that happened to me Stories about things that happened to other people because of me Eight billion dollars* Stories about dogs The secret to eternal happiness* *These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!

The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.

Can we ever rediscover the lost pieces of ourselves that time and tragedy have stolen? Midcoast Maine, 1992. A fragile veil separates a seemingly idyllic small town from dark secrets lying just beneath. After his sister’s untimely death, life holds little meaning for teenaged CJ Slater. Numb, withdrawn, and plagued with self-doubt, CJ finds himself drawn into a dangerous mystery when he meets the enigmatic Izzy. Izzy believes the birthmark over her heart is a scar from when she was killed in a previous life. After a cataclysmically traumatic childhood, she ran away from home and dedicated herself to finding the person she believes to have brutally murdered her previous incarnation. While CJ does not believe in reincarnation, he believes in Izzy. Convinced she has tracked the killer to CJ’s town, the two slowly start to unravel the mystery and unwittingly unearth insidious and perilous secrets. At once a gripping mystery, a moving coming-of-age tale, and a philosophical examination of the human condition, Even After Always explores how we can recover what time takes away. It is an affirmation of the redemptive power of love and the belief in ourselves and each other.

A “special work” (J. S. Park) that honors life’s deep griefs, great joys, and unsettled in-betweens through every sacred season, assuring us that we are never alone “Oh, I love this book. . . . Honest and hopeful, masterfully written, both a balm and a bolstering.”—Shauna Niequist, New York Times bestselling author Exquisitely told and urgently resonant, Even After Everything is a love letter to anyone who has opened their heart only to be hurt. Stephanie Duncan Smith proposes that it’s not through grit or forced resilience that you will find a way forward, but through receiving the full spectrum of our lives, just as we receive the empathy of God-with-us in every moment. Duncan Smith’s disorientation began when she lost her first pregnancy on the winter solstice, just as the world readied to celebrate its most historic birth on Christmas. Then a new yet uncertain pregnancy unfolded parallel to the pandemic, until nearly one year to the day of her loss, she gave birth to her daughter at the peak of mortality in their city. These contradictions compelled Duncan Smith into a desperate search for steadiness, which she found in the liturgical year as a grounding force and the promise that we are seen by God in every season. In Even After Everything, Duncan Smith traverses the church’s circle of time and reorients herself and us in the sacred story told through Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, and Ordinary Time. She reveals the sacred year—through its endless interplay of love, loss, risk, and resurrection—as a mirror to the human experience, an anchor for turbulent times, and a womb strong enough to encompass every human care. At its heart lives the promise of God-with-us, inviting us into the spiritual practice of taking courage in the trust that we are accompanied in everything, and love will always have the last word.

I was born in January the year of 1934 to Dave, Ethel "Ashby" Estep. The first of their children of four. My father was a coal miner and was killed in a cave in 1942. My mother remarried a few years later and had a total of nine children. My mother was a God loving woman and had a lot to do with the way I have lived my life and the man I am today. I have spent most of my working life as an Industrial Electrician but have done just about every kind of work that the hands can do. I have been blessed by God to have been what they call a handy man. I started writing songs when I was about 73 years old and they just keep on coming to me after I bought a guitar seems I would hear the strings saying the words of the song. I got my first guitar when I was about 14 years old but hadn't played for many years. I have been blessed by God all through my life with a family that I love with all my heart and they have loved me with so many grand children and now the family is growing with many great grand children I can hardly keep up with the number. It dose the heart good to hear the word Grandpa. So to everyone who may buy or read this song book love one another and this world will be a much better place and put your trust in God to make it that way. Thank you very much and God bless you all.