Theresa Patnode opens the door to a simpler, more balanced time in America, reflecting upon her life growing up on a farm, vividly reliving her detailed memories as a ten-year-old girl living in the New York State Adirondack Mountains in the 1930s.

Theresa reflects the conflicts of living on a farm in searing poverty with eleven siblings in the cold unforgiving North Country with her guardian angel as a source of comfort. Few today have experienced the many scenarios Patnode relates in a starkly realistic manner. Some of those experiences include family struggles on their Ellenburg, New York farm with inclement weather ruining crops, rodent infestation, snow clogged roads as she helps with barn chores, learns basic catholic ideologies in her local church, dresses freshly killed chickens to eat, helps can fresh tomatoes, goes to school in a one-room schoolhouse without running water and attends fun school picnics.

"In Gratitude to My Guardian Angel" portrays stunning details of a historical time in the United States, a time that was simpler and more basic than the fastpaced, constantly escalating quest for faster and more sophisticated technology in the age of the new millennium.

When author Michelle Matthews came home from war, she thought returning alive meant the worst was over. She was mistaken; surviving life after war proved to be equally challenging. Matthews returned a changed person. In Re-entry, she narrates a poignant account of the war in Iraq, its tragic aftermath, and her courageous journey to heal emotionally.

Based on journal entries and e-mails sent before, during, and after her service in Iraq, this memoir provides a firsthand account of the trials and tribulations she experienced by her service and gives insight into her emotional journey. Upon her return, Matthews struggled with anxiety and depression and began overeating and abusing alcohol. She tells how she wrestled with thoughts of suicide as she found normal life overwhelming following the abnormal rhythm of war.

"Re-entry" shows that how, through counseling, physical and recreational therapy, journaling, meditating, exercising, and support from family and friends, Matthews found herself again.

"A true story of corruption and abuse of power on a grand scale at the top of one of America's most important industries, and one that is under the microscope with HEALTHCARE REFORM currently in active discussion." "Every businesswoman, every entrepreneur and small business owner in the country should hear this story, whether or not they are connected to the healthcare industry." Although this is nonfiction book, it has many of the elements of a compelling novel (e.g. sex, gore, villainous CEOs, the CIA and conspiracies.) The most fascinating part is that the story isn't over yet, and is still unfolding as you read. Stay tuned!

"Lure of the Trade Winds: Two Women Sailing the Pacific Ocean" transports readers to a place where few have gone before: aboard a thirty-four-foot boat, cruising the Pacific Ocean. Join author Jeannine Talley, as she and her sailing partner, Joy Smith, embark on the journey of a lifetime.

Each day is a new adventure aboard the Banshee. Talley and her partner are stranded on a reef in Vanuatu, contract malaria, rescue a wrecked boat, visit a skull site in the Solomon Islands, and journey to remote islands whose inhabitants still bear the scars of a brutal colonial past. When their electronic navigational equipment is lost in a storm, they must use sextant navigation, depending entirely on sun sights, to make a long passage north from the South Pacifi c to Micronesia.

In "Lure of the Trade Winds," the two women travel to some of the most remote areas of the world and interact with the inhabitants within their social settings. They unravel some of the world's mysteries, plunge into the unknown, and come face to face with some of the darker aspects of legacy of colonialism. The tale of their travels proves once again that the spirit of adventure knows no bounds.

Virginia Women is the first of two volumes exploring the history of Virginia women through the lives of exemplary and remarkable individuals. This collection of seventeen essays, written by established and emerging scholars, recovers the stories and voices of a diverse group of women, from the seventeenth century through the Civil War era. Placing their subjects in their larger historical contexts, the authors show how the experiences of Virginia women varied by race, class, age, and marital status, and also across both space and time. Some essays examine the lives of well-known women-such as First Lady Dolley Madison-from a new perspective. Others introduce readers to relatively obscure historical figures: the convicted witch Grace Sherwood; the colonial printer Clementina Rind; Harriet Hemings, the enslaved daughter of Thomas Jefferson. Essays on the frontier heroine Mary Draper Ingles and the Civil War spy Elizabeth Van Lew examine the real women behind the legends. Altogether, the essays in this collection offer readers an engaging and personal window onto the experiences of women in the Old Dominion.

The Lamaze method is virtually synonymous with natural childbirth in America. In the 1970s, taking Lamaze classes was a common rite of passage to parenthood. The conscious relaxation and patterned breathing techniques touted as a natural and empowering path to the alleviation of pain in childbirth resonated with the feminist and countercultural values of the era. In Lamaze, historian Paula Michaels tells the surprising story of the Lamaze method from its origins in the Soviet Union in the 1940s, to its popularization in France in the 1950s, and then to its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s in the US. Michaels shows how, for different reasons, in disparate national contexts, this technique for managing the pain of childbirth without resort to drugs found a following. The Soviet government embraced this method as a panacea to childbirth pain in the face of the material and fiscal shortages that followed World War II. Heated and sometimes ideologically inflected debates surrounded the Lamaze method as it moved from East to West amid the Cold War. Physicians in France sympathetic to the communist cause helped to export it across the Iron Curtain, but politics alone fails to explain why French women embraced this approach. Arriving on American shores around 1960, the Lamaze method took on new meanings. Initially it offered a path to a safer and more satisfying birth experience, but overtly political considerations came to the fore once again as feminists appropriated it as a way to resist the patriarchal authority of male obstetricians. Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence, Michaels pieces together this complex and fascinating story at the crossroads of the history of politics, medicine, and women. The story of Lamaze illuminates the many contentious issues that swirl around birthing practices in America and Europe. Brimming with insight, Michaels' engaging history offers an instructive intervention in the debate about how to achieve humane, empowering, and safe maternity care for all women.

The surprising roots of the self-defense movement and the history of women's empowerment. At the turn of the twentieth century, women famously organized to demand greater social and political freedoms like gaining the right to vote. However, few realize that the Progressive Era also witnessed the birth of the women's self-defense movement. It is nearly impossible in today's day and age to imagine a world without the concept of women's self defense. Some women were inspired to take up boxing and jiu-jitsu for very personal reasons that ranged from protecting themselves from attacks by strangers on the street to rejecting gendered notions about feminine weakness and empowering themselves as their own protectors. Women's training in self defense was both a reflection of and a response to the broader cultural issues of the time, including the women's rights movement and the campaign for the vote. Perhaps more importantly, the discussion surrounding women's self-defense revealed powerful myths about the source of violence against women and opened up conversations about the less visible violence that many women faced in their own homes. Through self-defense training, women debunked patriarchal myths about inherent feminine weakness, creating a new image of women as powerful and self-reliant. Whether or not women consciously pursued self-defense for these reasons, their actions embodied feminist politics. Although their individual motivations may have varied, their collective action echoed through the twentieth century, demanding emancipation from the constrictions that prevented women from exercising their full rights as citizens and human beings. This book is a fascinating and comprehensive introduction to one of the most important women's issues of all time. This book will provoke good debate and offer distinct responses and solutions.

When the Democrats retook control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January 2007 after twelve years in the wilderness, Nancy Pelosi became the first woman speaker in American history. Given current electoral trends, she will probably serve for many terms to come. In Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the New American Politics, Ron Peters, one of America's leading scholars of Congress, and Cindy Rosenthal, one of America's leading scholars on women and political leadership, provide a comprehensive account of how Pelosi became speaker and what this tells us about Congress in the twenty-first century. They consider the key issues that Pelosi's rise presents for American politics, and also on the core themes that have shaped, and continue to shape, her remarkable career. She has always had to deal with challenges that women face in the male-dominated world of American politics, particularly at its highest levels. The authors also focus on her political background: first as the scion of a powerful Baltimore political family whose power base lay in east coast urban ethnic politics, and later as successful politician in what is probably the most liberal city in the country, San Francisco. After exploring her roots, they trace how she built her base within the House Democratic Caucus and ultimately consolidated enough power to win the leadership. They then consider how twelve years out of power allowed her to fashion a new image for House Democrats, and close with an analysis of her institutional leadership style. The book will be the first scholarly account of this major American political leader in her institutional context, and the authors will carry the account through the first year of the Obama administration.

Explains how easy it is to start and run a business. List many businesses to start with little or no money. Shows how to turn those arts and crafts items into a business. Very informative for men and women.

Throughout all of her life's experiences, author Angela Michelle has learned that both happiness and suffering are ubiquitous. In "Choice," she shares a compilation of journal entries and narratives discussing some of her life's most intense moments: being beaten nearly to death; having paranormal dreams and hearing voices validated by God; experiencing the brutal murder of her father; enduring flashbacks of childhood molestation; being raped in her own home; suffering through a frightening pregnancy and childbirth; and receiving visits from angels.

This memoir shares her thoughts and feelings as she moved through life, facing her fears and learning from all of her experiences. Choice narrates how she discovered there was a purpose for and a lesson learned from each event-a challenge to overcome and a new direction to follow.

Filled with emotion, "Choice" not only tells the story of Angela Michelle and how she faced her crazy life, but also serves to show that, through both the good and the bad, life has purpose.

Enter most African American congregations and you are likely to see the century-old pattern of a predominantly female audience led by a male pastor. How do we explain the dedication of African American women to the church, particularly when the church's regard for women has been questioned?

Following in the footsteps of Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham's pathbreaking work, "Righteous Discontent," Daphne Wiggins takes a contemporary look at the religiosity of black women. Her ethnographic work explores what is behind black women's intense loyalty to the church, bringing to the fore the voices of the female membership of black churches as few have done. Wiggins illuminates the spiritual sustenance the church provides black women, uncovers their critical assessment of the church's ministry, and interprets the consequences of their limited collective activism.

Wiggins paints a vivid portrait of what lived religion is like in black women's lives today.

Mary Leapor (1722-1746) was the kitchen-maid daughter of a Northamptonshire gardener. In the past 15 years, her works have been recovered from deep obscurity and she has been widely recognized as possibly the most important woman poet of the eighteenth century. This new edition, the first in 250 years, provides an accurate text of all her known works, including prose and drama. The volume has a substantial introduction summarizing all that is known of her life and providing an over-view of current scholarship. It also provides textual notes and detailed commentary on individual works. This long-anticipated edition is expected to become a landmark in eighteenth-century studies.

Susanna Klein never meant to insist on silence. But after the shy and sensitive little girl entered school and rarely spoke out loud, she was labeled as "the girl who doesn't talk." Helplessly trapped within her quiet world, Susanna taught herself how to talk without moving her lips. Sadly, no one understood her suffering or her condition: selective mutism.

In her compelling memoir, Susanna shares not only her powerful life story, but also her painful yet authentic journey inside her innermost thoughts as she details how her profound shyness permeated every area of her life and held her back from many of life's best experiences. As she embarks on a coming-of-age journey into adulthood, Susanna soon realizes she is stuck, unable to move on in her relationships or career. Desperate for answers but without any idea of where to turn, Susanna has no idea she is about to be saved by a sunny, golden little boy.

"The Girl Who Doesn't Talk" offers a touching, informative look at one woman's journey to redeem her painful past as she gains the understanding, self-acceptance, and peace that finally allows her to walk confidently into her future.

Uncovers women's participation and impact on defining historical moments and themes of Christian traditions Women in Christian Traditions offers a concise and accessible examination of the roles women have played in the construction and practice of Christian traditions, revealing the enormous debt that this major world religion owes to its female followers. It recovers forgotten and obscured moments in church history to help us to realize a richer and fuller understanding of Christianity. This text provides an overview of the complete sweep of Christian history through the lens of feminist scholarship. Yet it also departs from some of the assumptions of that scholarship, raising questions that challenge our thinking about how women have shaped beliefs and practices during two thousand years of church history. Did the emphasis on virginity in the early church empower Christian women? Did the emphasis on marriage during the Reformations of the sixteenth century improve their status? These questions and others have important implications for women in Christianity in particular, and for women in religion in general, since they go to the heart of the human condition. This work examines themes, movements, and events in their historical contexts and locates churchwomen within the broader developments that have been pivotal in the evolution of Christianity. From the earliest disciples to the latest theologians, from the missionaries to the martyrs, women have been instrumental in keeping the faith alive. Women in Christian Traditions shows how they did so.

According to the author, in Australia, men drink alcohol as a mark of masculinity, and women take care of drinking men as a part of normative femininity. And while research on alcoholics and alcoholism is common, very few studies consider the lives of the women who are married to alcoholics. Here, Zajdow details and explores the lives of such women who belong to Al-Anon, where they may share their experiences and offer their stories in a nonthreatening and supportive environment. The author presents the narratives of these women in the context of her analysis of the self-help group to demonstrate how people construct and reconstruct their lives as coherent stories about themselves, and to show how these self-stories can be changed and reconceptualized within the context of the group. Unique in its examination of self-stories offered within a self-help group, this book challenges sociological knowledge about the way these mutual-aid groups operate as communities of interest and help.

Zajdow begins by laying the groundwork through a discussion of the professional and lay discourses on women's relationships to alcoholic men. She then provides the basis for using self-stories to examine a group of people, the individuals in the group, and the behavior of the group in general. A history of Al-Anon as a self-help group is also detailed, and the author compares the Australian meetings to meetings in other parts of the world. The stories themselves are then examined and discussed in terms of how they relate to group processes and individual change through Al-Anon. Tracing the way that these women move from a place of despair to one of hope and meaningful change, this also represents a sociological exploration of gender, families, and communities.

This is the story of how a daughter and her mother find the truth of the heart and its healing powers. It's a chronicle of the transformative potentials found in simple acts of caring, compassion and love. There's magic in these pages, teaching precious insights to make every day a little richer and more fulfilling. Though a book about death and dying, this is much more than that, giving strength and support for anyone struggling with and ultimately embracing life's greatest challenges.