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He describes his new high-profile life in Los Angeles– the awards shows, the free clothes, the unfortunate presence of avocado on all the food. More significant, he reveals what he has discovered from diving into the white-hot center of pop culture: what it takes for him to stay true to himself and remember the lessons he learned growing up in Raleigh, North Carolina.\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\nClay shares his struggle to remain a man his mother can be proud of, and writes about the faith that sustains him today just as it did when he was an awkward, unpopular outsider. “I believe God has a direction for me. He did not give me this life just so I could buy a big house and an SUV. 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Here they are again, in an autobiography only a champion could write.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Connies Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42954925474008,"sku":"0394536401","price":4.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0648\/9099\/4904\/products\/MartinaNavratilova.jpg?v=1654999637"},{"product_id":"hawk-lady","title":"Hawk Lady","description":"Description for HAWK LADY by Stellanie Ure: \u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nWe have always felt a fascination with birds of prey.  Beautiful, exciting, immutably wild, the raptors, as they are called, are symbols of freedom; for centuries they have been admired for their strength and grace.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nIn modern times, however, these noble birds---falcons, hawks, eagles, owls---have largely been displaced by another, farm more dangerous predator:  Man.  Threatened both by the legitimate efforts of farmers and ranchers to protect livestock and by the destructiveness of hunters, their habitats eradicated by land development, and their survival menaced by pesticides and pollution, the raptors are fortunate to have such a champion as Stellanie Ure.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nHAWK LADY is the story of her efforts to protect these wonderful creations of nature.  For the last five years, with the help of her husband and her children, she has cared for injured and abandoned birds at her home in Utah.  Starting modestly with a pair of owlets named Cheech and Chong, they expanded to include numerous fascinating characters including a golden eagle and a pair of long-eared owls who grew to love TV.  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HAWK LADY is a moving, ultimately joyous account of one woman's concern for the future of our natural heritage, and will delight conservationists and wild-life lovers alike.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Connies Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42954925506776,"sku":"0385147325","price":4.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0648\/9099\/4904\/products\/HawkLady.jpg?v=1654999640"},{"product_id":"on-and-off-the-ice","title":"On And Off The Ice","description":"Description for ON AND OFF THE ICE by Dorothy Hamill: \u003cp\u003e\r\n\"Suddenly I was carrying more than my own personal hopes and fears.  I felt that in a sense I was not longer Dorothy Hamill---I was the United States.  The medal was not mine to lose---I was representing the hopes and dreams of thousands of people I had never even met...I tried to block everything out except the skating.  I tried to focus my mind, make it concentrate totally on the coming program...And then I was skating, and I had never felt as good as I did at that moment.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nDorothy Hamill went on to win an Olympic Gold Medal and the World Figure Skating Championship; she has been called \"America's Sweetheart,\" named \"Outstanding Athlete of the Year\", and voted \"the most trusted female athlete\".  Her picture has appeared on the cover of \"Time\" magazine; she has skated in ice ballets and with the Ice Capades, and is well known to television audiences.  Her zest for skating and sense of fun light everything she does.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nIn a voice full of spirit and good humor, Dorothy Hamill tells the story of the life behind her many titles and achievements---a life marked by dedication, sacrifice and hard work, and rewarded by excellence.  We meet the young girl who decided at the age of nine that nothing was more important to her than skating.  We learn what it was like to get up at five every morning to practice and try to keep up with school too; to be friends off the ice with the people she was trying to beat on the ice; to know the thrill of a standing ovation or, as happened at the 1974 World Championship, to skate to boos.  We hear her impressions of other skaters---Janet Lynn, John Curry, Toller Cranston---and her coaches, among them Otto Gold, Gustave Lussi and Carlo Fassi.  Then we get a glimpse of Dorothy Hamill the professional skater, as well as the wife of Dean Martin, Jr.  Throughout this book we see a person who has become famous but has never lost the earthiness and naturalness, and the humility, that have won her many fans.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Connies Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42954929406168,"sku":"0394856104","price":3.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0648\/9099\/4904\/products\/OnAndOffTheIce.jpg?v=1654999751"},{"product_id":"turning-point","title":"Turning Point","description":"Description for TURNING POINT:  A CANDIDATE, A STATE, AND A NATION COME OF AGE by Jimmy Carter: \u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nTURNING POINT is former President Jimmy Carter's bestselling account of his first political campaign in 1962.  In a time of racial conflict, civil disobedience, and anxious hope, Carter's decision to seek a seat in the Georgia state senate was rooted in his vision of how men and women of good faith can right the wrongs of our society.  However, the local political boss was not about to let lofty ideals stand in the way of his own thirst for power, and he did not shy from stuffing the ballot box to prove his point.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nPresident Carter's tale of political corruption in the rural South addresses issues of fairness and equal opportunity that continue to divide our nation today, while illuminating the origins of his own commitment to human rights.  No one can read this book and to be touched by this remarkable man.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Connies Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42954943725784,"sku":"9780812922998","price":4.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0648\/9099\/4904\/products\/TurningPoint.jpg?v=1655000217"},{"product_id":"theismann","title":"Theismann","description":"Description for THEISMANN by Joe Theismann with David Kindred: \u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nCandid, spontaneous, blunt, and always the center of attention, he's notorious for his uninhibited opinions.  Because when Joe Theismann opens his mouth, you never know what's going to happen next.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nHere at his outrageous best, Theismann talks about the controversies and characters that recognized figures in sports today:  the devastating blow that snapped his leg in half on national TV and brutally ended his sensational career; his feelings toward Lawrence Taylor, the quaterback-crusher who hit him; his controlled bitterness toward Jay Schroeder, the boy wonder who replaced him; the media spotlight that made his romance with movice star Cathy Lee Crosby into front-0;age news; the thrill of taking the Washington Redskins to a Super Bowl victory; his bizarre relationship with fullback John Riggins; why he was forbidden to attend the last Redskins home game after his injury; and how he felt when only four of his teammates came to see him in the hospital.  \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nHe takes us back to the days at Notre Dame, where everyone assumed he would fai (the headlines read, \"Little Joe to Get Killed at Notre Dame\"); his disappointment at losing the Heisman trophy to Jim Plunkett; his exile to Canadian Football League after his failure to sign with the Miami Dolphins, his secret gambling problem; his struggle to win the quarterback spot from Sonny Jurgensen and Billy Kilmer;  and his struggle to be accepted by his teammates and by the Washington fans, a battle he feels he never won.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nTheismann holds nothing back as he divulges his ever-honest opinions about football's most prominent figures, including Jim McMahon, Ken Stabler, Dexter Manley, Joe Gibbs, George Allen, Don Shula, Randy White, and countless others.  And he speaks his mind about such controversial issues that surround today's game as drug abuse, steroids, excessive violence, and free agency.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp. brutally honest revealing and laced with all the candor that theismann fans expect from their hero this insdie look at game of football men who play it is sure to be as big a winner man wrote it.\u003e\u003c\/p.\u003e","brand":"Connies Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42954944708824,"sku":"0809248433","price":3.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0648\/9099\/4904\/products\/Theismann.jpg?v=1655000282"},{"product_id":"blue-blood-1","title":"Blue Blood","description":"Description for BLUE BLOOD by Edward Conlon: \u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nThe life of a New York City police officer, with the NYPD running through his veins: a highly anticipated nonfiction epic- destined to be a classic.\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\nBLUE BLOOD is an important book about what it means to protect, to serve, and to defend among the ranks of New York's finest. Conlon's canvas is great and complicated-he is fourth generation NYPD-and the story he tells is impossibly rich: it presents an anecdotal history of New York through its police force, and depicts a vivid portrait of the teeming street life of the city in all its horror and splendor. It is a story about fathers and sons, partners who become brothers, old ghosts and undying legacies. Here you will see terms like loyalty, commitment, and honor come to life, in action, on a daily basis. With brio and a thrilling literary style, Conlon depicts his life on the force-from his first days walking a beat in the South Bronx, to his ascent to detective. The pace is relentless, the stories hypnotic, the scope nothing less than grand. Blue Blood is a bona fide literary masterpiece.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Connies Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42954945102040,"sku":"9781573222662","price":3.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0648\/9099\/4904\/products\/BlueBlood.jpg?v=1655000310"},{"product_id":"under-fire-an-american-story","title":"Under Fire:  An American Story","description":"Description for UNDER FIRE:  AN AMERICAN STORY by Oliver L North with William Novak: \u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nIn this candid book, Oliver North, the man who has been at the centre of the Iran-Contra controversy tells the story of his life. He reveals the inside story behind the headlines and stresses the importance of his family and his enduring faith, which have seen him through the toughest times.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Connies Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42954947166424,"sku":"9780060183349","price":3.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0648\/9099\/4904\/products\/UnderFire.jpg?v=1655000434"},{"product_id":"aretha-from-these-roots","title":"Aretha:  From These Roots","description":"Description for ARETHA:  FROM THESE ROOTS by Aretha Franklin and David Ritz: \u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nHer soulful, soaring voice has earned her mythic status. Now, in her own moving words, the woman behind the myth is revealed. The result is a captivating self-portrait of one of this century's most fascinating artists, an Aretha Franklin as real as the songs she sings.\r\n \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e       \r\nFor the first time anywhere, Aretha tells her story--the glorious triumphs as well as the heartbreaking pain. With refreshing candor, Aretha tells it like it is, the way she sees it, the way she lived it.\r\n   \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e     \r\nA child prodigy of the golden age of gospel, the daughter of a world-famous preacher, Aretha was the anointed successor to Mahalia Jackson and Clara Ward. But her father had a broader vision and helped Aretha enter the field of pop and jazz. By age eighteen, she was under contract to Columbia Records. Six years later, after only a few minor hits, she switched to Atlantic, where she shook the musical world to its roots. Her song \"Respect\" became the anthem of an epoch, a touchstone for African Americans, for women, for all people struggling to be free. Aretha became the Queen of Soul, the genre's finest interpreter since Ray Charles.\r\n   \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e     \r\nIn ARETHA:  FROM THESE ROOTS, the singer gets up-close and personal. In rich detail, she paints a vivid picture of a Detroit long gone: the storefront churches, the basement parties, the explosive R\u0026amp;B shows. She documents her life as a single teenage mother, working to balance home life with career, coping with two challenging marriages and, later, romantic relationships that were the source of both tremendous joy and unforeseen heartache.    \r\n   \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e     \r\nAlong the way, we meet the characters who lit up her life: her charismatic father, the Reverend C. L. Franklin, \"the man with the million-dollar voice\"; Sam Cooke, the man of her dreams; her singing sisters, Erma and Carolyn, and her manager-brother, Cecil; her famous colleagues--Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Luther Vandross, and Luciano Pavarotti--as well as some famous rivals.\r\n    \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e    \r\nAretha emerges as a triumphant woman of rare wit, willing to share with us her passion for great music, great food, and great love affairs. Her book does more than illuminate some of the most exciting songs ever sung; it lets you into the heart and mind of the mesmerizing woman who sang them.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Connies Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42954952507608,"sku":"9780375500336","price":3.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0648\/9099\/4904\/products\/Aretha.jpg?v=1655000601"},{"product_id":"leap-of-faith-2","title":"Leap Of Faith","description":"\u003ch3\u003eDescription for LEAP OF FAITH: MEMOIRS OF AN UNEXPECTED LIFE by Queen Noor:\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLEAP OF FAITH is the dramatic and inspiring story of an American woman's remarkable journey into the heart of a man and his nation. Born into a distinguished Arab-American family and raised amid privilege, Lisa Halaby joined the first freshman class at Princeton to accept women, graduating in 1974 with a degree in architecture and urban planning. Two years later, while visiting her father in Jordan, she was casually introduced on the airport runway to King Hussein. Widely admired in the Arab world as a voice of moderation, and for his direct lineage to the prophet Muhammad, Hussein would soon become the world's most eligible bachelor after the tragic death of his wife. The next time they met, Hussein would fall headlong in love with the athletic, outspoken daughter of his longtime friend. After a whirlwind, secret courtship Lisa Halaby became Noor Al Hussein, Queen of Jordan.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith eloquence and candor, Queen Noor speaks of the obstacles she faced as a naive young bride in the royal court, of rebelling against the smothering embrace of security guards and palace life, and of her own successful struggle to create a working role as a humanitarian activist In a court that simply expected Noor to keep her husband happy. As she gradually took on the mantle of a queen, Noor's joys and challenges grew. After a heartbreaking miscarriage, she gave birth to four children. Meshing the demands of motherhood with the commitments of her position often proved difficult, but she tried to keep her young children by her side, even while flying the world with her husband in his relentless quest for peace. This mission would reap satisfying rewards, including greater Arab unity and a peace treaty with Israel, and suffer such terrible setbacks as the Gulf War and the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLEAP OF FAITH is a remarkable document. It is the story of a young American woman who became wife and partner to an Arab monarch. It provides a compelling portrait of the late King Hussein and his lifelong effort to bring peace to his war torn region, and an insider's view of the growing gulf between the United States and the Arab nations. It is also the refreshingly candid story of a mother coming to terms with the demands the king's role as a world statesman placed on her family's private life. But most of all it is a love story---the intimate account of a woman who lost her heart to a king, and to his people.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Connies Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42954953916632,"sku":"","price":4.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0648\/9099\/4904\/products\/LeapOfFaithNoor.jpg?v=1655000726"},{"product_id":"haywire","title":"Haywire","description":"Description for HAYWIRE by Brooke Hayward: \u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nBrooke Hayward was born into the most enviable of circumstances. The daughter of a famous actress and a successful Hollywood agent, she was beautiful, wealthy, and living at the very center of the most privileged life America had to offer. Yet at twenty-three her family was ripped apart. Who could have imagined that this magical life could shatter, so conclusively, so destructively? Brooke Hayward tells the riveting story of how her family went haywire.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Connies Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42954956144856,"sku":"0394493257","price":3.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0648\/9099\/4904\/products\/Haywire.jpg?v=1655000852"},{"product_id":"get-to-the-heart-my-story","title":"Get To The Heart:  My Story","description":"Description for GET TO THE HEART:  MY STORY by Barbara Mandrell with George Vecsey: \u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nTo her millions of fans around the world she is beautiful, blond, and talented. A multifaceted performer whose music strikes a chord of truth. A loving wife and mother whose traditional values and tremendous faith touch the heart. But in September 1984 fate placed Barbara Mandrell and two of her children on a Tennessee highway, where a car crossed two lanes of traffic to hit her car head-on...and Barbara Mandrell and her story book life were changed forever.\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\nHere, for the first time, the spirited star who made her professional debut at age eleven who performed with country legends such as Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash, and who was chosen Entertainer of the Year two years running, shares her memories of the accident and her long, painful journey back. This is a chronicle of her remarkable rise to fame, a tribute to the extraordinary family who protected and sustained her. 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When the campaign was over, however, Kitty faced the goughest fight of her life---a private, ongoing struggle to overcome depression and the addiction to alcohol and pills that accompanied it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\nIn NOW YOU KNOW, Kitty speaks her mind with the same unflinching toughness and candor that characterized her media appearances throughout the campaign.  It is an intimate and remarkably revealing look at a seemingly blessed, yet terribly troubled, life, an unforgettable self-portrait of a woman in crisis.  \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nAs the daughter of a violinist in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Kitty Dickson grew up on a house where it was simply assumed that she would excel.  Her mother---a sometimes distant and daunting figure---was a perfectionist who set a high standard for her daughter to meet.  Ironically, it was following her mother's example that Kitty started taking diet pills, setting in motion a 26-year-long addiction.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nShe speaks of her failed first marriage, entered into in haste, partly in an effort to escape her mother's influence.  Then Kitty met and fell in love with Michael Dukakis, marrying him and using her seemingly boundless energy to help him in his political rise through the ranks of the Massachusetts Democratic party, all the while raising their family, all the while successfully hiding from her husband her addiction to diet pills.  \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\nShe write about the presidential campaign as no one has ever done before, taking us behind the scenes to show us what it was really like on the national campaign trail.  She tells about the highs---the exhilaration of primary victories, the warmth of the crowds---and of the lows---seeing her husband ridiculed in the press, confronting Michael after the hurt of the second televised debate.  She discusses Jesse Jackson and her ambivalent feelings toward him---her\r\nrespect for him as a leader, her disappointment at his pettiness toward her and Michael.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nAbove all, she writes with absolute candor about her most recent troubles---the much-publicized rubbing alcohol incident before Christmas last year, as well as other, heretofore undisclosed, episodes.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nUltimately, NOW YOU KNOW is a book about Kitty Dukakis's ongoing struggle to overcome problems of insecurity and depression, and the attendant addiction to alcohol and pills.  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As the sidekick to her father, the flamboyant star and man-about-town Ryan O'Neal, she became a fixture at the most glamorous Hollywood parties and counted celebrities ranging from Cher to Stanley Kubrick among her childhood friends.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nBut behind the glittering facade of Tatum's life lay heartbreak: abandonment, abuse, and neglect. Her alcoholic mother, the actress Joanna Moore, drifted in and out of her life. Her father, saddled with both Tatum and her brother Griffin, grew increasingly punishing and distant, especially after moving in with his longtime love, Farrah Fawcett. By her late teens, Tatum -- though a working actress with ten movies to her credit -- had begun a perilous slide into self-destruction.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nThen, just before her twenty-first birthday, Tatum met the man who would become her husband: the explosive tennis great John McEnroe. They had three children, Kevin, Sean, and Emily, in quick succession, followed by one of the messiest high-profile divorces on record. With the collapse of her marriage and no real family to turn to, Tatum succumbed to the demons of her past, which would nearly kill her.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nNow she has emerged clean and sober, rediscovering herself as an actress, mother, and wonderfully vibrant woman in what she considers the prime of her life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nA PAPER LIFE is a story of strength and courage: unflinchingly honest, yet poignant, often funny, and unfailingly uplifting. 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Most people who knew me growing up didn't think I would ever read a book, let alone write one.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\n    —Lou Holtz\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nFew people in the history of college sports have been more influential or had a bigger impact than Lou Holtz. Winner of the three national Coach of the Year honors, the only coach ever to lead six different schools to season-ending bowl games, and the ninth-winningest coach in college football history, Holtz is still teaching and coaching, although he is no longer on the gridiron.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nIn his most telling work to date, the man still known as \"Coach\" by all who cross his path reveals what motivated a rail-thin 135-pound kid with marginal academic credentials and a pronounced speech impediment to play and coach college football, and to become one of the most sought-after motivational speakers in history. With unflinching honesty and his trademark dry wit, Holtz goes deep, giving us the intimate details of the people who shaped his life and the decisions he would make that shaped the lives of so many others.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nHis is a storied career, and Holtz provides a frank and inside look at the challenges he overcame to turn around the programs at William and Mary, North Carolina State, Arkansas, and Minnesota. 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Why do we need the institution of marriage?  how much freedom should women have?  Does the man have to be head of the household?  Should children be disciplined?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nAnita Bryant, husband Bob Green, and children Bobby Jr., Gloria Lynn, and twins Barbara and Billy are a shining testimony to the fact that the Christian family is alive and well and successfully coping with problems and questions by returning to the fundamental truths of the Bible.  In Anita's own words:  \"The Bible teaches us how to love and discipline a child, guides us as husband to wife, wife to husband, and as to correction, reproof and instruction.  Anything we need can be found in the Bible.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nIn BLESS THIS HOUSE Anita and Bob relate some fo the problems they have had within themselves, with each other, with their children and with business dealings.  In every case a solution has been found by turning the problem over to Jesus Christ and then patiently waiting for Him to take over and make the necessary changes.  Every member of the Green family frequently visits the family altar to pray about big problems as well as small everyday annoyances.  Very often God has abundantly provided for them even in areas which they hadn't even thought or prayed about before!  For all these blessings they are exceedingly grateful!\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nBLESS THIS HOUSE is filled with interesting and amusing anecdotes about Anita and her family, but more importantly it is filled with the truths they have found and pass on to those who seek to build a Christian home.  Anita and Bob give Christ all the credit for the family harmony and happiness they have found and they assure ever reader that these things can be theirs through the love of Christ.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Connies Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42954963452120,"sku":"9780800705473","price":2.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0648\/9099\/4904\/products\/BlessThisHouse.jpg?v=1655001330"},{"product_id":"lets-face-it","title":"Let's Face It","description":"Description for LET'S FACE IT:  90 YEARS OF LIVING, LOVING, AND LEARNING by Kirk Douglas: \u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nHe has been one of the brightest stars in Hollywood, a hard-charging actor whose intensity on the screen has been mirrored in his personal life. As Kirk Douglas has grown older - he turned ninety in December 2006 - he has become less impetuous and more reflective. In this poignant and inspiring new memoir, Douglas contemplates what life is all about, weighing current events from his present frame of mind while summoning the passions of his younger days.Kirk Douglas is a born storyteller, and throughout LET'S FACE IT he tells wonderful tales and shares favorite jokes and hard-won insights. In the book, he explores the mixed blessings of growing older and looks back at his childhood, his young adulthood, and his storied, glamorous, and colorful life and career in Hollywood. He tells delightful stories of the making of such films as Spartacus, Lust for Life, Champion, The Bad and the Beautiful, and many others. He includes anecdotes about his friends Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Lauren Bacall, Ronald Reagan, Ava Gardner, Henry Kissinger, Fred Astaire, Yul Brynner, John Wayne, and Johnny Cash. He reveals the secrets that have kept him and his wife, Anne, happily married for more than five decades, and talks fondly and movingly of times spent with his sons, Michael, Peter, Eric, and Joel, and his grandchildren.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nDouglas's life has been filled with pain as well as joy. In Let's Face It, he writes frankly for the first time about the tragic death of his son Eric from a drug overdose at age forty-five. Douglas tells what it was like to recover from several near-death episodes, including a helicopter crash, a stroke, and a cardiac event. He writes of his sadness that many of his closest friends are no longer with us; the book includes many moving stories such as one about a regular poker game at Frank Sinatra's house at which he and Anne have been fixtures along with Gregory Peck, Jack Lemmon, and their wives. Though many of the players are gone, the game continues to this day.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nIn LET'S FACE IT, Douglas reflects on how his Jewish faith has become more and more important to him over the years. He offers strong opinions on everything from anti-Semitism to corporate greed, from racism to Hurricane Katrina, and from the war in Iraq to the situation in Israel. He writes about the importance in his life of the need to improve education for all children and about how we need to care more about the world and less about ourselves.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nA must-read for every fan, this engrossing memoir provides an indelible self-portrait of a great star - while sharing the wit and wisdom Kirk Douglas has accumulated over a lifetime.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Connies Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42954965188824,"sku":"9780470084694","price":2.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0648\/9099\/4904\/products\/LetsFaceIt.jpg?v=1655001453"},{"product_id":"how-to-get-divorced-by-30","title":"How To Get Divorced By 30","description":"Description for HOW TO GET DIVORCED BY 30:  MY MISGUIDED ATTEMPT AT A STARTER MARRIAGE by Sascha Rothchild: \u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nA hilarious memoir about the ending of a marriage that should have lasted forever-or at least for five years.\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\nIt's an age-old story. Girl meets boy. Girl marries boy. Girl decides she is way too young to be stuck in nuptial mediocrity.\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\nWhen Sascha realized that the one person she didn't want at her thirtieth birthday party was her husband, she knew that it was time for the relationship to end. So, like the hordes of others of her generation for whom starter marriages are as common as Louis Vuitton knock-offs and $5 Starbucks lattes, they got divorced. 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Everything seemed perfect, except that she felt awful.  And then one day, while walking down New York's 57th Street, she was taken by a terrible fit of coughing.  This was the beginning of a journey Stephani Cook would take to the edge of death and back.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nWhile doctors explore her body to determine her illness, Stephani fights to retain some sense of human dignity.  After a radical hysterectomy, open heart surgery, excruciatingly painful tests and probes, the doctors discover that what she has had for two years is cancer, a diagnosis that could have been learned from a simple urinalysis.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nPowerfully told, SECOND LIFE is not a simple story of remission and recuperation.  It is an odyssey of countless new beginnings in which Stephani Cook peels away the layers of guilt, fear and self-deprecation and discovers that death may not be as traumatic as the responsibility for rebuilding her life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nThis true story of a woman's struggle for self-determination is shattering and provocative in its treatment of the issues that still remain unsolved concerning women in relation to themselves and others---issues of loving, dependency and autonomy---especially in their conflicted attraction to men.  Brilliantly written, totally hones, and ultimately heroic, it is a book in which the author shares her own triumphant story of learning to cherish, not mere existence, but \"life\".\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Connies Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42954974691544,"sku":"9780671250157","price":3.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0648\/9099\/4904\/products\/SecondLife.jpg?v=1655001857"},{"product_id":"heres-the-story","title":"Here's The Story","description":"Description for HERE'S THE STORY:  SURVIVING MARCIA BRADY AND FINDING MY TRUE VOICE by Maureen McCormick: \u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\n    Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nMarcia Brady, eldest daughter on television's The Brady Bunch, had it all—style, looks, boys, brains, and talent. No wonder her younger sister Jan was jealous! For countless adolescents across America who came of age in the early 1970s, Marcia was the ideal American teenager. Girls wanted to be her. Boys wanted to date her. But what viewers didn't know about the always-sunny, perfect Marcia was that offscreen, her real-life counterpart, Maureen McCormick, the young actress who portrayed her, was living a very different—and not-so-wonderful—life. Now, for the very first time, Maureen tells the shocking and inspirational true story of the beloved teen generations have invited into their living rooms—and the woman she became.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nIn HERE'S THE STORY, Maureen takes us behind the scenes of America's favorite television family, the Bradys. With poignancy and candor, she reveals the lifelong friendships, the hurtful jealousies, the offscreen romance, the loving support her television family provided during a life-or-death moment, and the inconsolable loss of a man who had been a second father. But The Brady Bunch was only the beginning. Haunted by the perfection of her television alter ego, Maureen landed on the dark side, caught up in a fast-paced, drug-fueled, star-studded Hollywood existence that ultimately led to the biggest battle of her life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nMoving from drug dens on Wonderland Avenue to wild parties at the Playboy mansion and exotic escapades on the beaches of Hawaii, this candid, hard-hitting memoir exposes a side of a beloved pop-culture icon the paparazzi missed. Yet it is also a story of remarkable success. After kicking her drug habit, Maureen battled depression, reconnected with her mother, whom she nursed through the end of her life, and then found herself in a pitched battle for her family in which she ultimately triumphed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nThere is no question: Maureen McCormick is a survivor. After fifty years, she has finally learned what it means to love the person you are, insight that has brought her peace in a happy marriage and as a mother. HERE'S THE STORY is the empowering, engaging, shocking, and emotional tale of Maureen McCormick's courageous struggle over adversity and her lifelong battle to come to terms with the idea of perfection—and herself.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Connies Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42954975019224,"sku":"9780061490149","price":4.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0648\/9099\/4904\/products\/HeresTheStory.jpg?v=1655001887"},{"product_id":"still-me","title":"Still Me","description":"Description for STILL ME by Christopher Reeve: \u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nChristopher Reeve has beaten the odds before. He scored his first role in a Euripides play at 15, costarred with Katharine Hepburn at 22, and was one of two advanced-program students accepted at Juilliard, to which 2,000 drama students annually apply. (The other advanced student became his best friend, Robin Williams.) Reeve rode a sailplane to 32,000 feet over Pikes Peak, fell 90 feet from a parasail harness into four feet of water and walked away. He survived emergency appendectomy, malaria in Kenya, and the disastrous film Changing Channels, with Burt Reynolds. He flew vintage airplanes upside down. On his first solo transatlantic flight, a radar controller informed him he was about to run out of gas 200 miles west of Iceland. The radar controller had misread his screen, and Reeve landed safely.\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\nThen, in 1995, his horse balked at a 3-foot-3-inch racecourse fence, made an abrupt \"dirty stop,\" Reeve's hands got tangled in the reins, he landed on his head and got a \"hangman's injury\"--a broken neck. Ace paramedics got oxygen to him 60 seconds before brain damage set in, and a helicopter named Pegasus lofted him to a hospital.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nReeve was already important. His interpretation of Superman was classic, and his starring role in The Bostonians launched the Merchant\/Ivory school of filmmaking. But it was not until his paralysis that Reeve really got moving as a public figure of the first rank. As his memoir STILL ME details, since the accident, Reeve has directed his first film, started the Christopher Reeve Foundation to fund spinal-cord-repair research, lobbied Congress, and crisscrossed the country on speaking engagements.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Connies Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42954977542360,"sku":"9780679452355","price":3.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0648\/9099\/4904\/products\/StillMe.jpg?v=1655002023"},{"product_id":"the-eye-of-the-wind","title":"The Eye Of The Wind","description":"Description for THE EYE OF THE WIND:  AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Peter Scott: \u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nTHE EYE OF THE WIND is the autobiography of a great naturalist, sportsman, nature artist, and adventurer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\nPeter Scott's father, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, became a national hero when he died tragically in the antarctic in 1912, leaving his young son a legacy of fame and honor.  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Lange provided what Stern had yet to find all in the same place: a wit quick enough to keep pace with his own, a pathetic self-image to dwarf his own, a personal history both heartbreaking and hilarious, and an ingrained sense of self-sabotage that continually keeps things interesting.\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\nA natural storyteller with a bottomless pit of material, Lange grew up in a close-knit, working-class Italian family in Union, New Jersey, a maniacal Yankees fan who pursued the two things his father said he was cut out for—sports and comedy. Tragically, Artie Lange Sr. never saw the truth in that prediction: He became a quadriplegic in an accident when Artie was eighteen and died soon after. But as with every trial in his life, from his drug addiction to his obesity to his fights with his mother, Artie mines the humor, pathos, and humanity in these events and turns them into comedy classics.\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\nTrue fans of the Stern Show will find Artie gold in these pages: hilarious tales that couldn’t have happened to anyone else. There are stories from his days driving a Jersey cab, working as a longshoreman in Port Newark, and navigating the dark circuit of stand-up comedy. There are outrageous episodes from the frenzied heights of his coked-up days at MADtv, surprisingly moving stories from his childhood, and an account of his recent U.S.O. tour that is equally stirring and irreverent. But also in this volume are stories Artie’s never told before, including some that he deemed too revealing for radio.\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\nWild, shocking, and drop-dead hilarious, TOO FAT TO FISH is Artie Lange giving everything he’s got to give. 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It’s never too late to set new goals for yourself and strive to meet them, to dust off your childhood dreams and pursue them again, to wake up every morning hoping to learn something new.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nIn this riotous collection of musings, observations, and life lessons, Kathie Lee shares her thoughts about marriage, parenthood, friendship, faith, pet peeves, senior moments, and how to extricate oneself from potentially hairy situations with self-deprecating wit. Writing with the candor of a friend who knows where the bodies are buried, Kathie Lee reveals the truth every woman of a certain age knows but won’t admit: that we love our kids every second of every day but are counting the minutes till they’re ready to go off to college, that even though gravity is a constant force, not all parts of our bodies droop at the same rate, and that life and show business share one simple rule: “Don’t sit by the phone and wait for a man or a job.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nFull of warmth, humor, down-to-earth wisdom, and more than a little bit of dish, JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I'D DROPPED MY LAST EGG is a delectable read for grown-ups of all ages.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Connies Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42954985767128,"sku":"9780345512062","price":2.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0648\/9099\/4904\/products\/JustWhenIThoughtIdDropped.jpg?v=1655002505"},{"product_id":"losing-it","title":"Losing It","description":"\u003ch3\u003eDescription for LOSING IT---AND GAINING MY LIFE BACK ONE POUND AT A TIME by Valerie Bertinelli:\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eValerie Bertinelli, then: bubbly sitcom star and America's Sweetheart turned tabloid headline and rock star wife. Now: actress, single working mother of teenage rock star, and weight-loss inspiration to millions.We all knew and loved Valerie Bertinelli years ago when she played girl-next-door cutie Barbara Cooper in the hit TV show \"One Day at a Time,\" and then starred in numerous TV movies. From wholesome primetime in America's living rooms, Valerie moved to late nights with the hardest-partying band of the decadent eighties when she became, at twenty, wife to rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen. Losing It is Valerie's frank account of her life backstage and in the spotlight. 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It was almost frightening when I thought of how close people allowed themselves to be with us; we were given such easy access to their souls.  We were like housekeepers given the keys to every room and finding th eskeletons and long-hidden cobwebs no one else ever saw.\"  \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nPassionately and eloquently told, INTENSIVE CARE is the moving and personal account of a nurse's life:  from training to practice to burnout---and beyond...\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\nEcho Heron, a ten-year veteran of the coronary care unit and the emergency room of a major San Francisco Bay Area hospital, immerses us in her fascinating, heartbreaking, and ultimately, triumphant world of nursing, a world in which life-and-death decisions are made on a minute-by-minute basis.  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