- About the Book

RealAge: Are You as Young as You Can Be?
by Michael F. Roizen, M.D.
with Elizabeth Anne Stephenson
Published by Cliff Street Books
A Division of HarperCollins Publishers

- About the Book

MY SOUL SAID TO ME:
An Unlikely Journey
Behind the Walls of Justice
by Robert E. Roberts, D.D.S., Ph.D., M.S.W.
Published by Health Communications, Inc.

So there Rusty and I were, behind locked doors, in a circle with fifty male prisoners. As soon as our requested three minutes of silence were over, Billy, a prisoner who was sitting next to my colleague, Rusty, turned to him, got right in his face and demanded, "What the f- you doin' here - you come here to f- with our minds?" Billy was not much bigger than Rusty, but he was solid muscle. The expression on his face was serious and focused. "They payin' you to be here? How much they payin' you? Wisely, Rusty carefully and calmly answered his questions with a brief "Yes," and, "Not much."

Such was the tone at Dixon Correctional Institute in Jackson, Louisiana, on day-one of Bob Robert's first workshop. Here, as part of his doctoral dissertation, he would apply the community building model of his mentor Dr. Scott Peck to a group of fifty prisoners, nearly all African American, and chosen at random by a lottery system. Meeting weekly, and intended to last three years, the workshops progressed. Men who had lived together for years, barely exchanging words, began to converse meaningfully with each other. Visitations increased from loved ones and friends, and a considerable decrease in violence within the group of prisoners occurred as well. When tested, the average reading scores of the community improved an entire grade level every seven weeks.

In My Soul Said To Me: An Unlikely Journey Behind the Walls of Justice, Bob Roberts documents every leg of this unlikely journey straight through to the eventual sabotage and demise of the program he implemented in Jackson. Fortunately, although the author has us despairing for the Dixon prisoners left behind whom we grow to understand and care about, Roberts is inspired to further his work by starting what would become the country's only privately operated prisoner re-entry program funded by the Department of Justice and the most successful one of its kind.

What began as an experiment that benefited a few hundred prisoners in Louisiana grew into Project Return in New Orleans, a program affiliated with Tulane Medical Center's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Since its inception, Project Return has helped break the cycles of addiction, crime and violence of over 2,500 former offenders reducing their probability of returning to prison from 3 in 4 to 1 in 4.

Two significant elements of the work Roberts practiced in his original program and carries on at Project Return involve grief work and African studies. For the first time in their lives, participants enter a safe environment for unloading emotional burdens they have carried for years, burdens that have weighed them down with guilt, shame, and grief because there has been no place to lay them, no one to acknowledge their suffering, no vessel strong enough to contain their rage. From this process, participants cultivate an environment of "extraordinary respect" for each other rekindling in them the flames of dignity, courage, determination, and destiny.

Exploring the darkest terrain of violence and human suffering, and the brightest regions of redemption, human dignity and hope, My Soul Said to Me will change forever your view of criminal justice, your appreciation of deep relationships and freedom, and your ability to determine your own future. It is a story of deceit and honesty, cowardice and courage, prejudice and acceptance. Most importantly, it is the story of the power of friendship and the ability that lies within each of us to create beauty in the world through commitment, determination, and the understanding that all of our souls came here for a reason.

"...this worthwhile, important book offers a bright, optimistic window onto the often horrific conditions that still exist in prisons today."
--Publishers Weekly, February 2003

"I was privileged to participate in the community circle of Project Return once, and I grasped immediately the source for its success -- community. This story is a refreshing testimony but it's also a roadmap to community and healing. And, most importantly, it's a bright and gleaming sign of possibility that will inspire others to create ways to reach out and include the 'least of these' which our society tends to throw away."
-- Helen Prejean, author, Dead Man Walking

"This is a passionate, sobering story that paradoxically brings hope into dark places of the American psyche."
-- Robert Bly, author of Iron John

"This book tells of one man's courage [and] challenges the courage of us readers to face our passive complicity that perpetuates the system."
-- James Hillman, author, The Soul's Code

"My Soul Said to Me is a dramatic story of both personal and social transformation."
-- Robert Moore, author, The Archetype of Initiation

"It takes boldness, determination and an acute sense of service to the world in pain to do what Bob Roberts has done. His journey speaks to all souls who have heard the call to live at the edge courageously and sacrificially."
-- Malidoma Somé, author, Of Water and the Spirit

"Bob Roberts' story is both incredibly moving and inspiring. His healing model is both effective and replicable. It goes right to the heart of the matter. A must read for anyone interested in prison reform and human potential."
-- Richard Gere, actor and activist

"This book chronicles a unique journey which has been successful in its goal of giving guidance and hope to hundreds of ex-convicts, leading many to productive lives and reducing the rate of recidivism. It is a truly inspiring story."
-- David C. Treen, former Governor of Louisiana

- About the Book

YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE:
Why We Must Abolish the Income Tax
by Sheldon Richman
Published by The Future of Freedom Foundation

The IRS is the most feared government agency in America.

Why does it exist and why is it integral to the operation of the government as we have come to know it? "As we have come to know it" - there's the rub. The income tax wasn't integral to anything the Founders of this country had in mind and it wasn't integral to anything they designed.

Sheldon Richman shows where the income tax and the IRS camefrom, and recounts not only how they came to be but why. He traces the constitutional difficulties relating to direct and indirect taxes. He deals with the moral difficulties of justice in taxation. And he investigates just where the idea for "progressivity" came from: who would promote such an idea, and what's the ethical justification for forcing you to pay a larger portion of your income in taxes when you get a raise or find a better job?

All taxation is objectionable, Richman says, but special evils and abuses accompany the income tax. What makes Richman's analysis different from others is that he shows that those special evils are not accidental, something that can be eliminated just by putting the right people in charge or by offering a few reforms here and there. They are intrinsic to the purpose for which the IRS and the income tax exist.

And that's why he proposes that the whole thing just be repealed.

How much will that cost and what would it mean to Americans and their liberty? Richman argues that there are no real costs - only bene-fits - to returning to the American people the billions the income tax takes from them every year. Getting rid of the income tax is a critical step toward expanding and restoring our liberties.

An afterword discusses the latest batch of reforms: they turn out to be more window dressing. They couldn't have been otherwise, says Richman, and he tells you why.

Sheldon Richman says the income tax makes you poorer; reading his discussion of it will make you richer.

Copyright ©1999 by Sheldon Richman and The Future of Freedom Foundation. Please do not duplicate or distribute this file without permission from the publisher. Please send requests to mailto: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it Thank you.

- About the Book

POST-RAPTURE RADIO:
Lost Writings from a Failed Revolution
by Russell Rathbun
Published by Jossey-Bass, An Imprint of Wiley
(ISBN: 0-7879-7393-9, 208 pages, hardcover, $21.95)
Available from this site or directly from the publisher:
http://www.josseybass.com/

"Hilarious, passionate, infuriating, revealing, alarming, perplexing, illuminating. In short, apocalyptic. And definitely required reading for anyone seeking a faithful Christianity in the heart of the American Empire."
-- Andy Crouch, columnist, Christianity Today

"Once in a while a book reaches out from the page, grabs me by the scruff of the neck, and says something so pithy, so smart, and irreverently funny that I almost bust a gut laughing. That's what Post-Rapture Radio did to me on several occasions. The fact is, sometimes satire is the best way for us to see our own foibles, and this book is a wonderful antidote to much that ails the church. It's A Confederacy of Dunces for Christians."
-- Tony Jones, author, The Sacred Way

"Soren Kierkegaard said that people held in the grip of an illusion cannot be directly reasoned with. One must assault them with appealing but apparently absurd stories and even contradictions in the desperate hope that indirect communication can accomplish what direct communication cannot. Russell Rathbun may be Kierkegaard's great-grandson or something. If you have no illusions, you don't need to read this. Otherwise..."
-- Brian McLaren, pastor, author, A New Kind of Christian.

"Funny and thought-provoking. It challenges the way one thinks about the gospel of Jesus Christ and the church in his name."
-- Gordon Cano, singer and songwriter, Violent Femmes

"There are times when the tongue-in-cheek can become a light in the mind -- when 'off the wall' becomes the plank of reality. Richard Lamblove was a driven crusader in his last-ditch stand against the shallowly fervent. I feel the fury of his fugitively scribbling his final battle plan on the remnants of cereal boxes and scraps of cardboard. Alas, were it not for Russell Rathbun, we would not know of these lost writings nor feel the loss of great truth to the forces of evangelical glitz."
-- Calvin Miller, author, Hunger for the Holy and Loving God Closeup; professor, Beeson Divinity School

In Post-Rapture Radio, our faithful narrator finds a mysterious box containing the sermons and journal entries of a genuine, unvarnished American character the Reverend Richard Lamblove. The little-known Lamblove tried and failed to revolutionize contemporary Christian culture. As his journal entries, cereal box scribblings, and random notes written on paper scraps reveal, Lamblove sees contemporary culture as shallow, overly individualistic, and consumed with the kind of status measured by money, power, and celebrity. And American Evangelicalism -- which has been integrated into the culture as a whole -- has similar failings. Reverend Lamblove vanished without a trace, but Russell Rathbun has "compiled" his papers into a compelling critique of contemporary faith; an antidote to faith-as-usual and a wakeup call for Christians to genuinely respond to the gospel.

- About the Book

VIRTUAL HUMANS: A Build-It-Yourself Kit
by Peter Plantec

"Virtual Humans" may seem like something out of science fiction, but they are already here. Companies use them as website hosts, individuals use them as personal assistants, and people interact with them in computer games, educational applications, and many other arenas. The possibilities are limitless, but the most amazing thing is that anyone can create a "V-human" from scratch. Virtual Humans gives not just start-to-finish instructions for designing a charming synthetic person, but also a CD-ROM containing the tools and techniques to make it real. Readers will learn how to:

This book-and-CD package is the first of its kind and a landmark on a par with the first build-your-own-Web-site products. Readers will be among the first to create ultra- realistic, versatile V-human personalities, and will start well ahead of what is soon to be a tidal wave of worldwide interest.

Copyright (c)2004 by Peter Plantec. All rights reserved. Printed here with permission of the publisher, AMACOM, http://www.amanet.org/books.

- About the Book

BEANIE MANIA:
A Comprehensive Collector's Guide
by Becky Phillips and Becky Estenssoro
Published by Dinomates, Inc.

Beanie Mania is sweeping the world! This book will help you catch Beanie Fever and join the many thousands of other people who collect the cutest toy ever made: Beanie Babies! What makes these toys so collectable? Besides being adored by children everywhere, Beanie Babies are prized by collectors because of the way they're marketed and made. Each year, Beanie Baby manufacturer Ty Incorporated "retires" a certain number of Beanie Baby models and introduces new ones. Ty also restricts the supply of Beanie Babies by selling them only through selected outlets.

The restricted supply of Beanie Babies, and the fact that many models are taken out of production, has created an exuberant secondary market for these cuddly collectibles. And that's not all -- manufacturing oddities and defects have added to the value of many Beanie Babies. Ty's never-ending quest to improve Beanie Babies has resulted in name changes, color changes, and design changes that all add value for collectors. Even the tags that come attached to Beanie Babies are extremely important to collectors. Since they first appeared in 1993, Beanie Babies have fueled a collecting craze that gets more sophisticated each year and shows no signs of slowing down.

That's why BEANIE MANIA is the essential guide for collectors and anyone else who just loves these little toys! The authors have a complete collection of Beanie Babies, which they lovingly document through gorgeous full-color photography in BEANIE MANIA. Page after glorious page documents the history of Beanie Babies, including color photos of prototypes, manufacturing abnormalities, subtle changes in coloring and style. Beanie Baby tags are also lovingly chronicled and displayed, along with Ty catalogs and other Beanieobilia. The book includes numerous checklists for collectors to use, along with current values and a one year price history for all retired Beanie Babies.

BEANIE MANIA is exactly what you would expect from a quality collector's guide: fanatical, detailed, accurate, lovingly devoted to every aspect of the Beanie Baby phenomenon. The book has become a collector's item itself, and is updated with each reprinting, assuring you will get the latest information about these remarkable toys, including:

• A complete history and description, including professional
  color photographs, of every retired and redesigned Beanie
  Baby, and Beanie Baby prototypes.
• Current values and a one year price history of all retired
  Beanie Babies.
• Heart and tush tag chronology, photos and descriptions for
  all retired and current Beanie Babies.
• Pages and pages of information packed charts, with Beanie
  Baby birth dates, retired dates and much more.
• Beanie Baby trivia, such as Beanie Baby "mistakes,"
  (mistagged Beanies, tag misprints, manufacturing oddities,
  etc).
• Collector fill-in charts, so you can keep track of your own
  collection.
• A discussion of promotional events - McDonald's Teenie
  Beanie Babies and the Chicago Cubs Beanie Babies Opening Day.
  Includes descriptions and photographs of the Teenie Beanie
  Babies.
• The authors' own Collectibility Ranking of each retired
  Beanie Baby.
• Fully indexed for easy access to information.
• And much, much more!

Copyright 1997 by Dinomates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Please do not duplicate or distribute this file without permission from Dinomates, Inc. Reprint requests should be e-mailed to This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it Thank You!

- About the Book

Anatomy of A Life Possessed
Published by Winner Episode Press
ISBN 0-9719221-5-2, 343 pages, softcover, $19.95

"You won't take this into account. If you had written it instead of me, I probably wouldn't believe it." So begins this amazing tale of a woman victimized by peculiar forces. It reads like a work of fiction, but it is true.

The author describes a privileged childhood in an aristocratic family with links to Genghis Khan, Tibet, Russian czars, and Rasputin as part of her incredible story, which includes growing up under three oppressive regimes: Nazism, Communism, and her monarchical, dictatorial mother.

Ms. Pema recounts her early life in the ballet world, followed by her years as an actress during Rome's golden age of cinema, working for directors Federico Fellini, Vittorio De Sica, and Marco Ferreri, where she met and married prominent entertainment attorney Max Ferrara.

Anatomy of A Life Possessed makes a sudden turn from the glamour of the Via Veneto onto a backroads Highway to Hell. It reveals a harrowing telepathic possession with physical and emotional consequences. A mad monk, sexual torment, exorcism, and never-ending harassment devastate the author's life. She describes her excruciating experience of possession and her research conducted in an effort to regain control.

Anatomy of A Life Possessed is a fascinating and controversial book which challenges traditional beliefs. Pema's personal memoir will be of value to people of any age who are ready to find and face the truth. It may help you to:

• Protect yourself from negative energy and subjugating ideologies

• Understand the dangers of a faith that relies on fear and submission

• Discover how to turn obstacles, fear, and self-doubt into helpful knowledge

• Recognize that the generosity, genius, and greatness of humanity are the only virtues that can help us create our own happiness.
  

For an absolutely gripping, unstoppable reading experience, take a journey into the abyss and back with Anatomy of A Life Possessed.

Anatomy of a Life Possessed is available through your favorite bookseller or directly from Book Clearing House, http://www.book-clearing-house.com, or call 1-800-431-1579 or visit our web site at: http://www.onlyonetruth.com

Copyright ©2002 by Maria Ferrara Pema. All rights reserved. Please feel free to duplicate or distribute this file as long as the contents are not changed and this copyright notice is intact. Thank you.

- About the Book

Globetrotter Dogma:
100 Canons for Escaping the Rat Race
and Exploring the World
by Bruce Northam

In Globetrotter Dogma, travel writer Bruce Northam entertains, educates, and motivates readers to hit the road through an idiosyncratic mix of travel lore, humor, shock, story, and practical advice. Employing a rambling resume that touches two thirds of the planet, Northam shares wisdom from his far-flung adventures:

This passport-colored collection of travel koans is bound in a leatherette cover that beckons to be bent in a back pocket. Between harrowing tales of canine cuisine in China and machete mischief in Fiji, Northam shares practical tips for keeping your marbles while losing your bearings. This timeless, illustrated compendium of roving bliss provides 100 reasons to keep exploring our wild and ever-changing world.

Globetrotter Dogma is available wherever travel books are sold, online or at your neighborhood bookstore.

Copyright ©2002 by Bruce Northam. All rights reserved. Please feel free to duplicate or distribute this file as long as the contents are not changed and this copyright notice is intact. Thank you.