A young girl is perched on the cold chrome of yet anotherdoctor’s examining table, missing yet another day of school. Justtwelve, she’s tall, skinny, and weak. It’s four o’clock, and shehasn’t been allowed to eat anything all day. Her mother, on theother hand, seems curiously excited. She's about to suggestopen-heart surgery on her child to "get to the bottom of this." Shechecks her teeth for lipstick and, as the doctor enters, shoots thegirl a warning glance. This child will not ruin her plans. Sickened From early childhood, Julie Gregory was continually X-rayed,medicated, and operated on—in the vain pursuit of an illness thatwas created in her mother’s mind. Munchausen by proxy (MBP) is theworld’s most hidden and dangerous form of child abuse, in which thecaretaker—almost always the mother—invents or induces symptoms inher child because she craves the attention of medicalprofessionals. Many MBP children die, but Julie Gregory not onlysurvived, she escaped the powerful

“There are lives lost in this book, and there are lives saved,too, if salvation means a young man or woman begins to feeldeserving of a place on the planet. . . . What could be moresoul-satisfying? These are the most influential professionals mostof us will ever meet. The effects of their work will lastforever.” –from the foreword by Anna Quindlen Now depicted in a bestselling book and a feature film, theFreedom Writers phenomenon came about in 1994 when Erin Gruwellstepped into Room 203 and began her first teaching job out ofcollege. Long Beach, California, was still reeling from the deadlyviolence that erupted during the Rodney King riots, and the kids inErin’s classroom reflected the anger, resentment, and hopelessnessof their community. Undaunted, Erin fostered an educationalphilosophy that valued and promoted diversity, tolerance, andcommunication, and in the process, she transformed her students’lives, as well as her own. Erin Gruwell and the Freedom Writerswent on to establish t

A revealing portrait of one of the most glamorous,influential, and notorious members of the Spencer family Intelligent, attractive, and born into wealth, Harriet Spencer,ancestor of Princess Diana, married Frederick, Viscount Duncannon,at the age of nineteen. But it was her affair with Lord GranvilleLeveson Gower that resulted in the birth of two children and allbut consumed Harriet’s life. The first comprehensive biography of Lady Harriet Spencer,Privilege Scandal gives readers an inside look at the Britisharistocracy during the decadent eighteenth century, while bringingone of the era’s most intriguing women to life.

Now you can have normal vision all the time, thanks to excimerlaser treatment–commonly known as PRK and LASIK–a painlessprocedure that takes less than five minutes. Dr. Andrew I. Caster,one of the leading physicians in the permanent correction ofnearsightedness, astigmatism, and farsightedness, takes you throughthe entire process–including the experiences of patients who haveundergone the procedure and their incredible joy at suddenly beingable to see again. ·What are the differences between the PRK, LASIK, and RKprocedures, and which is right for me? ·What are the most common side effects of excimer lasertreatment? ·How do I judge whether a doctor is sufficiently qualified toperform excimer laser treatment? ·Will the procedure be painful? ·When can I fully resume normal daily activities such as drivingand reading? ·Will eye laser treatment stop my eyes from getting worse? ·How well has the FDA monitored this technique? ·How many people have

These are the stories of Victor Villase?or's childhood.Magical, yet true, they are fables of endurance, defeat andtriumph, spirituality, and, always, of love. Handed down throughthe generations, the Villase-or's have been telling these familytales for years. Now, Victor shares them with his unmistakablestoryteller style, complete with beautiful imagery and timelesssignificance. Set against the backdrop of the Mexican revolution and hisfamily's migration to the United States, these stories feature acast of unforgettable characters who have in common theirperseverance and courage. They encounter the supernatural, escapepersecution by rebel soldiers, endure hunger, thirst and physicalstress, and ultimately, transcend their circumstances to achievetheir dreams. They are indeed walking stars. Victor Villase?or works his magic once again with theseextraordinary stories.

A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year An O, The Oprah Magazine #1 Terrific Read In an age of bolters—women who broke the rules and fled theirmarriages—Idina Sackville was the most celebrated of them all. Herrelentless affairs, wild sex parties, and brazen flaunting ofconvention shocked high society and inspired countless writers andartists, from Nancy Mitford to Greta Garbo. But Idina’s compellingcharm masked the pain of betrayal and heartbreak. Now Frances Osborne explores the life of Idina, her enigmaticgreat-grandmother, using letters, diaries, and family legend,following her from Edwardian London to the hills of Kenya, whereshe reigned over the scandalous antics of the “Happy Valley Set.”Dazzlingly chic yet warmly intimate, The Bolter is a fascinatinglook at a woman whose energy still burns bright almost a centurylater.

People know Bill Moyers from his many years of path-breakingjournalism on television. But he is also one of America's mostsought-after public speakers. In this collection of speeches,Moyers celebrates the promise of American democracy and offers apassionate defense of its principles of fairness and justice. Moyers on Democracy takes on crucial issues such as economicinequality, our broken electoral process, our weakened independentpress, and the despoiling of the earth we share as our commongift.

For nearly a century, Kellogg, Idaho, was home to America’srichest silver mine, Sunshine Mine. Mining there, as everywhere,was not an easy life, but regardless of the risk, there wassomething about being underground, the lure of hitting a deep veinof silver. The promise of good money and the intense bonds offriendship brought men back year after year. Mining is about beinga man and a fighter in a job where tomorrow always brings the hopeof a big score. On May 2, 1972, 174 miners entered Sunshine Mine on their dailyquest for silver. Aboveground, safety engineer Bob Launhardt sat inhis office, filing his usual mountain of federal and statepaperwork. From his office window he could see the air shafts thatfed fresh air into the mine, more than a mile below the surface.The air shafts usually emitted only tiny coughs of exhaust; unlikedangerously combustible coal mines, Sunshine was a fireproofhardrock mine, nothing but cold, dripping wet stone. There weremany safety concerns at Sunshine, but fire wa

Beginning on Valentine’s Day, 1981, when twelve-year-old ToddDomboski plunged through the earth in his grandmother’s backyard inCentralia, Pennsylvania, The Day the Earth Caved In is anunprecedented and riveting account of the nation’s worst mine fire.In astonishing detail, award-winning journalist Joan Quigley, thegranddaughter of Centralia miners, ushers readers into the dramaticworld of the underground blaze. Drawing on interviews with keyparticipants and exclusive new research, Quigley paintsunforgettable portraits of Centralia and its residents, from TomLarkin, the short-order cook and ex-hippie who rallied theactivists, to Helen Womer, the bank teller who galvanized theopposition, denying the fire’s existence even as toxic fumesinvaded her home. Like Jonathan Harr’s A Civil Action, The Daythe Earth Caved In is a seminal investigation of individualrights, corporate privilege, and governmental indifference to thepowerless.

For William Ayers, noted educator and activist, "the allure ofteaching, that ineffable magic drawing me back to the classroomagain and again, issues from an ideal that lies directly at itsheart: Teaching, at its best, is an enterprise that helps humanbeings reach the full measure of their humanity." In Teaching Toward Freedom, Ayers illuminates the hope as well asthe conflict that characterize the entire project of education: howit can be used in authoritarian and dehumanizing ways in theservice of the state, the church, or a restrictive existing socialorder-an idea he abhors-or, as he envisions it, as an undertakingto help students become more fully human, more engaged, moreparticipatory, more free. Drawing on his own classroom experiencesand those of his many colleagues, as well as on popular culture,film, poetry, and novels, Ayers redraws the lines concerning how weteach and why, and the surprising things we uncover when we allowstudents to become visible, vocal authors of their own texts andcreators of

Each woman has a special spiritual destiny, as unique andinalienable as the rhythms that govern her life. Maria Harristeaches women how to dance to the music of their own souls anddiscover the spiritual steps that can transform their lives.

Book De*ion The "unwritten" final chapter of Anne Frank: The Diary of a YoungGirl tells the story of the time between Anne Frank's arrest andher death through the testimony of six Jewish women who survivedthe hell from which Anne Frank never retumed. From Publishers Weekly With approximately 30% more material than the original 1947edition, revealing a more rebellious and complex narrator, the newedition of Frank's classic diary spent five weeks on PW'sbestseller list. From School Library Journal Lindwer presents the tran*s of six in-depth interviewsconducted in preparation for his film documentary, The Last SevenMonths of Anne Frank . Although "Lies Goosens," real name HannahElisabeth Pick-Goslar, will be the most familiar to readers of AnneFrank: The Diary of a Young Girl , each of these women'sfirst-person accounts is compelling. They relate their backgrounds,their capture, details of the concentration camp experience, andde*ions of the time immediately following liberation. Eachincludes her relationship

A funny and moving story told through the letters of two womennurturing a friendship as they are separated by distance,experience, and time.

What does it really mean to be a good father? What did yourfather tell you, that has stayed with you throughout your life? Wasthere a lesson from him, a story, or a moment that helped to makeyou who you are? Is there a special memory that makes you smilewhen you least expect it? After the publication of Tim Russert’s number one New York Timesbestseller about his father, Big Russ Me, he received anavalanche of letters from daughters and sons who wanted to tell himabout their own fathers, most of whom were not superdads or heroesbut ordinary men who were remembered and cherished for some oftheir best moments–of advice, tenderness, strength, honor,discipline, and occasional eccentricity. Most of these daughters and sons were eager to express thegratitude they had carried with them through the years. Otherswanted to share lessons and memories and, most important, pass themdown to their own children. This book is for all fathers, young or old, who can learn fromthe men in these pages

When Locke High School opened its doors in 1967, the residentsof Watts celebrated it as a sign of the changes promised by LosAngeles. But four decades later, first-year Teach for Americarecruits Rachelle, Phillip, Hrag, and Taylor are greeted by aschool that looks more like a prison, with bars, padlocks, andchains all over. With little training and experience, these four will be asked toproduce academic gains in students who are among the mostdisadvantaged in the country. Relentless Pursuit lays bare theexperiences of these four teachers to evaluate the strengths andpeculiarities of Teach for America and a social reality that hasbecome inescapable.

From the woman who became chairman of the flagship office ofthe largest advertising agency network in the world comes a wryreality check on how to get ahead and thrive in thetestosterone-driven business arena. Nina DiSesa is a master communicator, a ceiling crasher, and oneof the most successful women in the corporate world. She is also abig-time realist who has figured out that S M-seduction andmanipulation-is the secret to winning over (and surpassing) the bigguys. In Seducing the Boys Club, DiSesa shows that you can, infact, leave your male colleagues in the dust-but not by followingthe rules you learned in business school. By playing the roles of den mother, fraternity brother, littlesister, and hard-nosed boss, DiSesa navigated the choppy,macho-minded waters of the workplace. All the "bad boys" in herlife-and there are many-have provided a wealth of devilishlyamusing stories and cautionary tales that DiSesa is only too happyto pass on. Ah, revenge can be sweet, but the truth is that sh

In this often moving, sometimes wry account of life in Baghdadduring the first war on Iraq and in exile in the years following,Iraqi-born, British-educated artist Nuha al-Radi shows us theeffects of war on ordinary people. She recounts the day-to-dayrealities of living in a city under siege, where food has to beconsumed or thrown out because there is no way to preserve it,where eventually people cannot sleep until the nightly bombingcommences, where packs of stray dogs roam the streets (and provideher own dog Salvi with a harem) and rats invade homes. Through itall, al-Radi works at her art and gathers with neighbors and familyfor meals and other occasions, happy and sad. In the wake of the war, al-Radi lives in semi-exile, shuttlingbetween Beirut and Amman, travelling to New York, London, Mexicoand Yemen. As she suffers the indignities of being an Iraqi inexile, al-Radi immerses us in a way of life constricted by thestress and effects of war and embargoes, giving texture to areality we have only been able

Searching for Faith, Family, and Inner Peace on the Back of aMotorcycle Between 1846 and 1866, about 50,000 Mormons traveled the Mormontrail, burying more than 6,000 of the faithful along the way. Fourgenerations ago, seven of Jana Richman’s eight great-greatgrandmothers walked all or part of the 1,300-mile trek, fromNauvoo, Illinois, on the Mississippi River to Salt Lake City.Traveling on faith and little else, they endured unfathomablehardships—bitter cold, extreme heat, mud, icy river crossings,blizzards, buffalo stampedes, disease, hunger, and exhaustion—neverstopping until they reached their promised land where they could befree to practice a religion that few outsiders understood and manyviolently condemned. One hundred and fifty years later, Jana Richman packs maps and alaptop computer on the back of a motorcycle and follows the routeof her ancestors, searching for the peace and faith the womenbefore her carried with so much confidence. Jana also searches fora clearer understan

"Buzz Aldrin relives the Magnificent Desolation of space, andthe soul-sucking depression that awaited back home." –Vanity Fair, “Hot Type” "An admirable account of an icon of the golden age of spaceflight." –Kirkus Reviews “Space fans, in particular, will cheer.” –Booklist “Aldrin presents a no-holds-barred account of how his celebrity,career and human weaknesses nearly destroyed his life….Thisinspiring story exhibits Aldrin as a different, perfectly humankind of hero, giving readers a sympathetic look at a man eclipsedby his own legend.” –Publishers Weekly “Buzz Aldrin relives the Magnificent Desolation of space, and thesoul-sucking depression that awaited back home." –Vanity Fair, “Hot Type” “Riveting reading.” –The Economist “Leads the field of new releases.The candid portrayal of hisearthly battles—often written with great humor—make this a cutabove the rest….Great holiday reading.”