“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.

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.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Provocative and appealing . . . well worth your extremely limited time." —Barbara Spindel, The Wall Street Journal The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks. Nobody needs telling there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and the ceaseless battle against distraction; and we’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient, and “life hacks” to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks. Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern fixation on “getting everything done,” Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing how many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society—and that we could do things differently.