Better Days Ahead

"It is America in the 1950s. Four different families play out their individual lives in different parts of the country.... Circumstances compel three of the families to head West to California for a fresh start for their children. No one can predict the high-stakes drama and devasting results that ensue when their lives intersect. This tale, the first in a trilogy, follows the families as they struggle with their lives, loves, and longings."--Cover, p. 4.

Last of the Better Days Ahead is a collection of short stories that are all tangentially related to the songs on the album of the same name. The songs contain these stories, sometimes hidden and other times merely implied. The record was put out by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings in 2021. from Introduction by Abraham Smith: Charlie's a national treasure: a philosopher-poet with crossroads-esque guitar skills and he brings the same dew-stew compote to his fictions. The sentences are the guitar: haunting and jabbing and unfurling like ferns fueled by dinosaur knee-dust and purpling thunderstorms: rumbling greased, repealing the first patent for the ox harness, toppling jostle wild, domino river spider side-to-side, endless as southern MN soy field summer sunsets with a quick backwards hitching yard train twitch toward the moonwalking Mississippi Charley Patton sang, then darting on through longjumps elliptical like hummingbirds playing fast with hectoring honey hives.

Brighter Days Ahead is a moving story set against the backdrop of the Second World War, from Mary Wood, the author of In Their Mother’s Footsteps. War pulled them apart, but can it bring them back together? Molly lives with her repugnant father, who has betrayed her many times. From a young age, living on the streets of London’s East End, she has seen the harsh realities of life . . . When she’s kidnapped by a gang and forced into their underworld, her future seems bleak. Flo spent her early years in an orphanage, and is about to turn her hand to teacher training. When a kindly teacher at her school approaches her about a job at Bletchley Park, it could be everything she never knew she wanted. Will the girls' friendship be enough to weather the hard times ahead?

Progress. It is one of the animating concepts of the modern era. From the Enlightenment onwards, the West has had an enduring belief that through the evolution of institutions, innovations, and ideas, the human condition is improving. This process is supposedly accelerating as new technologies, individual freedoms, and the spread of global norms empower individuals and societies around the world. But is progress inevitable? Its critics argue that human civilization has become different, not better, over the last two and a half centuries. What is seen as a breakthrough or innovation in one period becomes a setback or limitation in another. In short, progress is an ideology not a fact; a way of thinking about the world as opposed to a description of reality. In the seventeenth semi-annual Munk Debates, which was held in Toronto on November 6, 2015, pioneering cognitive scientist Steven Pinker and bestselling author Matt Ridley squared off against noted philosopher Alain de Botton and bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell to debate whether humankind’s best days lie ahead.

This is a collection of stories provided from personal experiences of Stan Stoops. The stories take place on the east and west coasts of the United States, the Hawiian Islands, the Filipino Islands, and the now nonexistent South Vietnam and finally end up where it all started, in Southeast Iowa. The topics range from stories about inmates, stories about women, and the most preferred subject of all, fishing. There are a few other topics thrown into the mix, hopefully for the enjoyment of the reader. The author's mentality in writing these stories was to crowd the element of humor and to take the best out of each day no matter what the day may have had to offer. So make it a better day, and enjoy reading

Being better is about doing better. Doing better is about forming better habits. And better habits are a product of being in a better environment. As children we inherited our environment, good or bad, and we can still see some of the ways we were shaped by it. But now we are in a position to create our own environment. No matter your circumstances. Your environment will respond to your inner life and to your habits. What you think determines what you do, and what you do determines who you are! There are only a few differences between the rich man and the poor man who dreams of being rich. Read this book and find out what they are! THIS IS GREAT GIFT FOR MEN OF ALL AGES!

How to understand your clients' true illnesses, not just their DSM checklists. Though the DSM discusses the criteria for mood disorders in absolute terms—either present or absent—professionals are aware that while such dichotomies are useful for teaching, they are not always true in practice. Recent genetic data support clinicians' longstanding recognition that a continuum of mood disorders between unipolar and bipolar better matches reality than a yes/no, bipolar-or-not approach. If we acknowledge that continuum, how does this affect our approach to diagnosis and treatment? In A Spectrum Approach to Mood Disorders, nationally recognized expert James Phelps provides an in-depth exploration of the signs, symptoms, and nuanced presentations of the mood disorder spectrum, focusing on the broad gray area between Major Depression and Bipolar I. Combining theoretical understanding and real-world scenarios, Phelps offers practical treatment guidelines for clinicians to better understand the subtle ways mood disorders can show up, and how to find the most beneficial path for treatment based on the patient's individual pattern of symptoms. Is it trauma, or is it bipolar? Borderline? Both? Phelps's expertise and wealth of personal experience provides readers with unparalleled insight into a subject that is by nature challenging to define. His emphasis on non-medication approaches, as well as chapters on all the major pill-based treatments (from fish oil to lithium to the avoidance of atypical antipsychotics and antidepressants), creates a comprehensive resource for any clinician working with patients on the mood spectrum. Appendices on the relationship between bipolar diagnosis, politics, and religion; and a plain-English approach to the statistical perils of bipolar screening, offer further value. Phelps has written an invaluable guide of the critical information professionals need to treat patients on the mood disorder spectrum, as well as a useful tool for highly motivated families and patients to better understand the mood disorder that effects their lives. This book seeks to alter the black and white language surrounding these mood disorders to influence a shift in how patients are diagnosed—to insure that treatment matches their specific needs.

“‘A Better Man,' with its mix of meteorological suspense, psychological insight and criminal pursuit, is arguably the best book yet in an outstanding, original oeuvre.” —Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal "Enchanting... one of his most ennobling missions." —Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review Catastrophic spring flooding, blistering attacks in the media, and a mysterious disappearance greet Chief Inspector Armand Gamache as he returns to the Sûreté du Québec in the latest novel by #1 New York Times bestselling author Louise Penny. It’s Gamache’s first day back as head of the homicide department, a job he temporarily shares with his previous second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Flood waters are rising across the province. In the middle of the turmoil a father approaches Gamache, pleading for help in finding his daughter. As crisis piles upon crisis, Gamache tries to hold off the encroaching chaos, and realizes the search for Vivienne Godin should be abandoned. But with a daughter of his own, he finds himself developing a profound, and perhaps unwise, empathy for her distraught father. Increasingly hounded by the question, how would you feel..., he resumes the search. As the rivers rise, and the social media onslaught against Gamache becomes crueler, a body is discovered. And in the tumult, mistakes are made. In the next novel in this “constantly surprising series that deepens and darkens as it evolves” (New York Times Book Review), Gamache must face a horrific possibility, and a burning question. What would you do if your child’s killer walked free?