Non-Fiction – Page 4 – Readers Alley

Category: Non-Fiction

Memoir – The Sound of Her Voice

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Memoir

Published: November 2020

Publisher: Adelaide Books

THE SOUND OF HER VOICE is Sara’s exploration of what it was like to live in an unfeeling world as a child, the healing in writing, what her three homes are to her, how marriage healed her, and, ultimately, how she came to understand and forgive how her mother could, in her way, give her away. Sara sprinkles her book with haikus that go to the heart of such a journey. She has written her book for all who need to find that voice within them in order to heal.

About the Author

Sara Gelbard is a woman of three homes – Israel, New York, and Punta del Este in Uruguay. This may be because she never had a home. She was born on one of the first Israeli kibbutzim in Western Galil near the Lebanon border, of Polish parents who escaped the tremendous horror of Europe. They escaped, but their families did not, and consequently, their commitment to the kibbutz was ideological, necessary, and fueled by a broken heart. Her book, THE SOUND OF HER VOICE, sensitively explores her coming to terms with the emotional loneliness of her upbringing and how she repaired that wound to create a life full of love, work and beauty. Today, she is a townhouse real estate broker in NYC helping others find their homes.

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Self-Help – Stress-Free Prosperity

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Non-Fiction/Self-Help/Mindfulness

Date Published: February 12 2021

Stress and Prosperity are two sides of the same coin. When you see one face up, you do not see the other. When you reduce stress in your life, you start increasing prosperity. Your outlook towards life changes. When the pressures in your life increase, your feeling of control goes down. Most of us play this coin flip all our lives.

In this book, Sneha teaches you how to feel more prosperous, more joyous and more happy in your life, while making sure that you unburden all that is not needed. Sneha has been through a fair share of stress through accidents, surgery, heart breaks, career setbacks, entrepreneurial setbacks and more. And on that journey of life navigating stress, she has always found a way to bring herself back on the road to prosperity.

When she started writing this book, one thing was clear. The idea of this book was not to send you down the road of positive thinking your way to prosperity or denying your feelings and forcing yourself to feel positive. The idea of this book is to give actionable strategies to help you lower your stress and increase your prosperity.

About The Author

Sneha Jhanb is a Certified Mindfulness Teacher, Reiki, and Sound Bath Practitioner. She is passionate to help busy professionals connect with their emotional and financial well-being and relax deeply.

Sneha transitioned from her career as an Industrial Engineer and now identifies herself as a multi-passionate entrepreneur and wears many hats under the umbrella of StressLessWithSnehaJ.com, a website she created to help busy professionals find the balance between joy and prosperity. Throughout her life, she has been fascinated in understanding personal growth and prosperity.

Other than writing and coaching, she loves serving her clients through meditation and relaxation sessions using mindfulness, crystal bowl sound meditation and yoga nidra.

Sneha is an author of Indian origin, now settled in the United States of America where she lives with her husband, two children and a furry pet.

Sneha’s written work has appeared in online publications like Raising World Children, Power of Moms, Huffington Post, Elephant Journal, Thrive Global and Deseret News.

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The Last Tourist by Nowick Gray – Excerpt

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Travel, Memoir

Date Published December 2020

Publisher: Cougar WebWorks

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Midlife crisis, his life’s dreams at an early end, it was time to bust out
and see the world.

Nowick Gray sets out with backpack and drum to find out what he’s been
missing. Tropical warmth, better health, inner peace… He scours Asia and the
Pacific, Europe and Latin America for that perfect beach, a new tribe, a
winter home. Will ayahuasca heal his woes, or an ayurvedic cleanse? Beset by
desperate touts on an abandoned Bali shore, he knows he’s a dying breed: the
last tourist.

With this fourth book in the My Country series, Nowick’s travels extend
across the globe, caught in fresh prose reminiscent of Chatwin, Grant, Iyer,
Matthiessen, Gilbert, Theroux. His creative nonfiction “shows the reader all
the ways in which one can perceive, digest, and make sense of the world.”
With “language that is superb: detailed yet economical; vivid and
appealing,” The Last Tourist invites you to join an intrepid traveler “in
the midst of the action as if walking alongside.”

About the Author

Nowick Gray makes his home on Salt Spring Island, BC, where he writes
fiction and creative nonfiction. A frequent contributor to The New Agora
online magazine, Nowick also works as a freelance copyeditor. When not
engaged with words, he enjoys hiking, kayaking, and playing African drums.
In winter months, if not seeking unspoiled tropical locations, he settles
for cozy hibernation at home.

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EXCERPT

Part I – Paradise Lost and Found

Tourists don’t know where they’ve been. Travelers don’t know where they’re going.

— Paul Theroux, The Happy Isles of Oceania

Hawai’i: Gateway to the Tropics

Return to Paradise (1998)

Fourteen-year-old Nashira and I are en route to Hawaii; our first trip outside of continental North America. The most trying part of the journey is already behind us. It’s winter in the British Columbia mountains, and the Castlegar airport was socked in, so our initial flight was canceled. The airline offered to bus us instead, but by a roundabout route that would have arrived too late for our early-morning flight from Vancouver to Kauai. So we piled back into our pickup truck at four o’clock, with a twelve-hour window to complete what normally is an eight-hour trip to the coast. We would need that cushion, encountering snow in all three passes.

Nashira took it all like a trooper. We lifted our spirits with stops every hour and a half: more gas, a stretch, snacks, new music tapes to keep us rolling. But it was a grueling trip, with slippery pavement and poor visibility: faint clues of tracks on the snowy highway ahead, with only glimpses of a center or side line here or there; heavy clumps icing the windshield wipers; a pair of red lights to follow when I was lucky.

Manning Park in silence was a snowy, treacherous dream, forcing me to be calm, relaxed, attentive. I followed the lights of one car most of the way through, coasting in soft communion behind it, pacing my distance, breathing, sweating lightly, coming finally to a peaceful revelation of being home again, truly at home, on the road. In that breathing space of acceptance expanding suddenly to all of my world, wherever I now would move, my center would come with me, a home mobile and live and adaptable to any contingency. Facing death on every curve, with every passing truck a whisper away, I knew that in that calmness and steady awareness is the power to protect, to guide, to hold the life force in sacred responsibility.

Snow turned to rain as we approached the coast, but there were more challenges to come. In Abbotsford the wind buffeted the truck and it was hard to hold it steady on the road. Through the outlying areas of Vancouver, hazard lights were flashing with this or that minor disaster everywhere: a tree across the left lane of the Trans-Canada Highway that we almost hit, blinded by the warning lights; an overturned vehicle at a dead-end crossroads where I took a wrong turn to the airport near Langley; a taped-off area of several blocks in Vancouver; another tree blocking both lanes of the Trans-Canada eastbound; another blinding repair light; whole sections of the city darkened with a power outage (affecting 200,000 people, we heard later). The plane even now, two and a half hours after takeoff, is rocking through 200 km/hr winds.

Memoir – Always Yours, Bee

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Memoir

Date Published: 3/2/21

Publisher: FinnStar Publishing

“There’s a guy. He was hit by a truck.”

On a rainy November day, Mia Hayes’ husband left for work on his Vespa. Normally, she would have driven him, but Mia was waiting on a phone call with an editor and didn’t have time.

She never saw that caring, loving version of her husband again.

The fallout from his accident–Mia’s guilt and her husband’s PTSD, memory loss, and depression–consumed their lives over the next five years as her laid-back husband changed into an angry man with few memories of their past. Desperate to hold her fragile family together, Mia ignored her own unraveling and plunged into bipolar depression.

As she searched for answers to unanswerable questions, Mia moved her family from San Francisco to Paris, France before landing in a leafy Washington, D.C. suburb where she tried to find a fresh start only to become embroiled in a scandal of her own making.

Through ups and downs, mental illness and bad decisions, Mia struggled with what it means to be a good wife and mother, whether saving her marriage was worth the pain, and understanding that healing is a personal journey.

Always Yours, Bee is a heartbreaking yet triumphant and brave look at a woman, a marriage, and a family falling apart and coming out stronger. Told with clarity and introspection, it captures the terror of losing the person closest to you—yourself.

Excerpt

Prologue

November 2004

Lemonade light filtered through the fog, casting a warm, golden tone across us as we watched Ryan run down the empty beach, a kite string clenched in his tiny fist.

November usually brought rain to San Francisco, but this particular day was clear, and we wanted to take advantage of the sun—even if it was chilly and damp out. Surfers bobbed off the coast, waiting for their ride, and gulls skittered along the shoreline. Later, after we ate our picnic lunch, we planned on exploring the tide pools.

James snapped a picture of Leo and me snuggled into a fleecy blanket. I waved him over to us, and he settled into the sand, his jean-clad leg touching mine. He tossed his arm over my shoulder and hugged me close.

“This is nice,” he said. Ryan had stopped running to inspect something on the beach, and Leo crawled off my lap into the sand. “But this is more fun.” James turned and tried to tickle me through my layers of bulky clothes.

We laughed and smiled and were so very happy.

That’s how I want to remember us.

Golden.

About the Author

Mia is a notorious eavesdropper who lives in Northern Virginia, outside Washington DC, with her husband, sons, two cats, and Harlow the Cavapoo.

She drinks too much green tea, loves traveling, and has mastered the art of procrastination cleaning.

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Facebook

Goodreads

Instagram: @miahayesauthor

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Business / Management – The Leadership Development Tool Kit

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Redesigning Your Leadership Development

Template to Drive Individual and Organizational Change

Business; Management; Human Resources

Are you a CEO in a small business or start-up company interested in aligning business and talent strategy to inspire your employees?

Are you an HR “Department of One” professional looking to create a legacy project and be recognized as a more strategic partner?

This book is for you!

• Practical steps to implement immediately

• A set of tools for effective people leadership

• Real-life examples of how a leadership development program gives rise to self-motivated, high- performance individuals (and teams) that produce long-term results and a competitive advantage for your business.

With The Leadership Development Tool Kit, you’ll learn how to create a fool-proof talent-building process to impact productivity and help your people thrive in the 21st century.

Shape Organizational Culture * Measure Outcomes * Monitor Employee Satisfaction * Optimize Critical Processes

Teaser From the Book

“Leadership development programs empower employees, increase employee retention, and improve productivity, thereby adding to the bottom line of businesses. That said, we would like to acknowledge that the development of an organization does not depend only on a leadership development program; it also requires supporting and implementing equity throughout the organization.”

About the Authors

Michael Sampson

Michael Sampson is an author, lecturer, certified coach and former United States foreign service officer who has studied and led international development programs and cross cultural relations since 1979. Michael has over 30 years of leadership and management experience in government and corporate environments. Since retiring from national service, Michael has been CEO of LMI Kenya, a master licensee of Leadership Management International (LMI) Inc., which ranked #1 in Leadership Development Programs in North America by Entrepreneur magazine. Michael continues to promote self-reliance and facilitate leadership development programs which drive results, quality and customer satisfaction around the world. Michael started LMI Kenya because of his desire to be more active in promoting leaders and next generation leadership in Africa. Michael is active in civic organizations including American Chamber of Commerce Kenya. He lives in Kenya with his wife, Alma, and enjoys spending time with his three adult daughters (including Faswilla, with whom he co-authored this book) and two grandchildren. Michael holds a BA in International Studies from the School for International Training and an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Faswilla Sampson

Faswilla Sampson is an author, certified coach and co-master licensee of Leadership Management International (LMI) Inc., a performance improvement company specializing in personal

leadership and organizational development. As an experienced CEO confidant, Faswilla’s mission is to develop leaders and organizations to their full potential. With more than a decade

working in the non-profit healthcare sector in Washington D.C., Faswilla’s strategic planning, program management, leadership and executive coaching experience, make her an organizational change agent. She believes that for any organization to be truly impactful in the 21st century requires developing leaders within all levels of the organization now. She enjoys speaking and

presenting on a variety of business topics from leadership to workforce planning to talent management. Faswilla holds a BA from University of Mary Washington and a master’s degree in International Administration from Central Michigan University.

Nonfiction / Retirement Planning – The Retirement Mirage

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Time to Think Differently

Nonfiction / Retirement Planning

Date Published: February 16, 2021

Publisher: The Strategic Wealth Advisor

Don’t be fooled by the retirement mirage.

Are you still buying into the retirement mirage, hoping that, once you stop working, your life will be a perpetual enjoyment, exploration, and pleasant experience? It’s time to think differently.

Your ideas about retirement are dissipating before your eyes. People are living longer, and the world is changing faster because of advancing technology. Twenty-first century notions about retirement are antiquated.

Nancy Hite has a fiduciary duty when guiding her clients’ financial process throughout their lives. If you’re like them, then you are so busy in your day-to-day life that you don’t have time to think farther ahead than next week’s paycheck. Nancy helps you: See ahead when you’re too busy to look up®.

In The Retirement Mirage, Nancy dissects the key points to help you think differently about your financial future.

· People are living longer today than at any time in history — be prepared so you don’t run out of money before you run out of time

· The world is evolving with climate change, disease, unsteady markets — learn how to adapt to constant change

· Technology is changing the world — find out how science positively impacts your financial future

· Education and our children — let’s give them a process that establishes a strong financial foundation for financial stability

· Spend it now, spend it later, or spend it never® — find out why this is Nancy’s motto and why it should be yours, too

The Retirement Mirage combines Nancy’s years of financial expertise with real-life examples to show you a variety of perspectives. The Retirement Mirage will inspire you to honestly assess your financial situation and offers the tools you need to prepare for the realities of your financial future.

The Retirement Mirage includes advice for all ages on what experts don’t tell you.

About the Author

Nancy Hite is the founder of The Strategic Wealth Advisor® LLC, located in Boca Raton, Florida.

She offers forthright advice and has a fiduciary duty to provide meaningful and workable options to help her clients prepare for and enjoy the current and future chapters of their lives by focusing on their personal goals.

Her first book, “The Retirement Mirage,” offers a fresh perspective to your future financial stability.

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Website

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Religion – Misreading Judas

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How Biblical Scholars Missed the Biggest Story of All Time

Religion

Publisher: AuthorHouse

The Christian New Testament story of Judas is not history. We now have period evidence from Egypt that shows Judas is a cover character for James the Just, successor to Jesus Christ, if there in fact was a Jesus Christ, which is highly debatable. The four Gospel story of the Betrayal of Christ is a tendentious remake of a mastership succession story in the gnostic Apocalypses of James and Gospel of Judas, found at Nag Hammadi and Al Minya, Egypt. Every single detail of the biblical story of Judas is found in its original telling in the gnostic succession story, just inverted — to hide the successor, James.

Misreading Judas received the Pinnacle Book Achievement Award in 2018.