Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction (David Sheff-Author)

Expanding on his New York Times Magazine article, Sheff chronicles his son’s downward spiral into addiction and the impact on him and his family. A bright, capable teenager, Nic began trying mind- and mood-altering substances when he was 17. In months, use became abuse, then abuse became addiction. By the time Sheff knew of his son’s condition, Nic was strung out on meth, the highly potent stimulant. While his son struggles to get clean, his second wife and two younger children are pulled helplessly into the drama. Sheff, as the parent of an addict, cycles through denial and acceptance and resistance. The author was already a journalist of considerable standing when this painful story began to unfold, and his impulse for detail serves him personally as well as professionally: there are hard, solid facts about meth and the kinds of havoc it wreaks on individuals, families and communities both urban and rural. His journey is long and harrowing, but Sheff does not spare himself or anyone else from keen professional scrutiny any more than he was himself spared the pains—and joys—of watching a loved one struggling with addiction and recovery. Real recovery creates—and can itself be—its own reward; this is an honest, hopeful book, coming at a propitious moment in the meth epidemic. (Publisher Weekly)

See Details: Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction

Audition: A Memoir (Barbara Walters-Author)

Book Description

Young people starting out in television sometimes say to me: “I want to be you.” My stock reply is always: “Then you have to take the whole package.”

And now, at last, the most important woman in the history of television journalism gives us that “whole package,” in her inspiring and riveting memoir. After more than forty years of interviewing heads of state, world leaders, movie stars, criminals, murderers, inspirational figures, and celebrities of all kinds, Barbara Walters has turned her gift for examination onto herself to reveal the forces that shaped her extraordinary life.

Just Who Will You Be?: Big Question. Little Book. Answer Within. (Maria Shriver – Author)

“I’ve learned that asking ourselves not just what we want to be, but who we want to be is important at every stage of our lives, not just when we’re starting out in the world. That’s because in a way, we’re starting out fresh in the world every single day.”

Just Who Will You Be? is a candid, heartfelt, and inspirational book for seekers of all ages. Inspired by a speech she gave, Maria Shriver’s message is that what you do in your life isn’t what matters. It’s who you are. It’s an important lesson that will appeal to anyone of any age looking for a life of meaning.

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (Oprah’s Book Club) by Eckhart Tolle

Book Description
The highly anticipated follow-up to the 2,000,000 copy bestselling inspirational book, The Power of Now

With his bestselling spiritual guide The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle inspired millions of readers to discover the freedom and joy of a life lived “in the now.” In A New Earth, Tolle expands on these powerful ideas to show how transcending our ego-based state of consciousness is not only essential to personal happiness, but also the key to ending conflict and suffering throughout the world.

Into the Wild (Jon Krakauer – Author)

After graduating from Emory University in Atlanta in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska, where he went to live in the wilderness. Four months later, he turned up dead. His diary, letters and two notes found at a remote campsite tell of his desperate effort to survive, apparently stranded by an injury and slowly starving. They also reflect the posturing of a confused young man, raised in affluent Annandale, Va., who self-consciously adopted a Tolstoyan renunciation of wealth and return to nature.

My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands (Chelsea Handler – Author)

Opening with a cute story from when she was seven and photographed her parents having sex, stand-up comedian Handler goes on to discuss the virtues of the one-night stand, which amount to having sex early enough so you’re not months into a relationship before you discover he’s into “anal beads and duct tape.” She discusses her quest for sex with a “black man,” which doesn’t work out because the date she finds on ChocolateSingles.com has a penis so large, she “would have had to be the size of the Lincoln Tunnel to accommodate that thing.”

New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2) by Stephenie Meyer

Grade 9 Up–Recovered from the vampire attack that hospitalized her in the conclusion of Twilight (Little, Brown, 2005), Bella celebrates her birthday with her boyfriend Edward and his family, a unique clan of vampires that has sworn off human blood. But the celebration abruptly ends when the teen accidentally cuts her arm on broken glass. The sight and smell of her blood trickling away forces the Cullen family to retreat lest they be tempted to make a meal of her.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Junot Díaz – Author)

SignatureReviewed by Matthew SharpeAreader might at first be surprised by how many chapters of a book entitled The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao are devoted not to its sci fi–and–fantasy-gobbling nerd-hero but to his sister, his mother and his grandfather. However, Junot Diaz’s dark and exuberant first novel makes a compelling case for the multiperspectival view of a life, wherein an individual cannot be known or understood in isolation from the history of his family and his nation.

The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls (Author)

Freelance writer Walls doesn’t pull her punches. She opens her memoir by describing looking out the window of her taxi, wondering if she’s “overdressed for the evening” and spotting her mother on the sidewalk, “rooting through a Dumpster.” Walls’s parents—just two of the unforgettable characters in this excellent, unusual book—were a matched pair of eccentrics, and raising four children didn’t conventionalize either of them. Her father was a self-taught man, a would-be inventor who could stay longer at a poker table than at most jobs and had “a little bit of a drinking situation,” as her mother put it.

The One Minute Entrepreneur: The Secret to Creating and Sustaining a Successful Business by Ken Blanchard (Author), Don Hutson (Author), Ethan Willis (Author)

Book Description

Mega-bestselling author Ken Blanchard and celebrated business leaders Don Hutson and Ethan Willis present an inspiring story that reveals the secrets to becoming a successful entrepreneur.

In THE ONE MINUTE ENTREPRENEUR, Ken Blanchard (coauthor of the #1 bestselling business classic The One Minute Manager), Don Hutson, CEO of U.S. Learning, and Ethan Willis, CEO of Prosper Learning, tell the inspiring story of one man’s challenges in creating his own business. Through a powerful and engaging narrative, we confront many of the typical problems all entrepreneurs face in starting up their business, from finding new sources of revenue to securing the commitment of their people and the loyalty of their customers.