Impossible Takes A Little Longer

A postscript to this edition includes a touching letter that Berg's young daughter wrote about her father for the Books for a Better Life Awards ceremony. On December 26, 1983, Art Berg was traveling to see his fiancée when his car went off the road. A broken neck left him a quadriplegic. Doctors told Berg he would never walk, hold a job, or have children. But they could not have been more wrong. Berg was determined to prevail, and would one day wear his own Super Bowl ring. In The Impossible Just Takes a Little Longer, Berg recounts his harrowing and inspirational story while imparting larger lessons about life, fear, and passion. Never giving up, Art resolved to embrace life even more fully, and established a thriving career as a motivational speaker, giving more than 150 speeches each year. Tragically, Art Berg died in February 2002, but his inspiring story -- a singular vision of passion and conviction -- lives on in The Impossible Just Takes a Little Longer.

The Impossible Takes a Little Longer is the story of an adventure-packed overland journey made by an inexperienced group of young men and women who set out to drive across the world to Australia and back in two old motor vehicles. The chosen route would take them through the bandit-infested areas of the famous Burma Ledo road, en route to Singapore. Their plan was to work their passage across to Australia by ship.Many problems, disappointments, and mistakes were to arise during the early planning stages. The journey was made on a very limited budget and all the equipment was basic. The vehicles used had seen better days and sponsors were few and far between. There was much sickness on the return half of the journey, which included malaria, jungle foot, hookworm, fever, guinea worm and dysentery.It was reckoned that the whole journey would take about nine months. In fact, it took twice as long. The delay in leaving Australia, which was due with shipping bound for Singapore, resulted in a late arrival in Thailand and Burma, where the group ran smack into a monsoon and suffered all the delays and hold-ups associated with it.The complete journey (London-Singapore-Australia-Singapore-London) covered a road distance of 40,000 miles, more than 5,000 miles of which were in Australia.

In The Impossible Will Take a Little While, a phrase borrowed from Billie Holliday, the editor of Soul of a Citizen brings together fifty stories and essays that range across nations, eras, wars, and political movements. Danusha Goska, an Indiana activist with a paralyzing physical disability, writes about overcoming political immobilization, drawing on her history with the Peace Corps and Mother Teresa. Vaclav Havel, the former president of the Czech Republic, finds value in seemingly doomed or futile actions taken by oppressed peoples. Rosemarie Freeney Harding recalls the music that sustained the civil rights movement, and Paxus Calta-Star recounts the powerful vignette of an 18-year-old who launched the overthrow of Bulgaria's dictatorship. Many of the essays are new, others classic works that continue to inspire. Together, these writers explore a path of heartfelt community involvement that leads beyond despair to compassion and hope. The voices collected in The Impossible Will Take a Little While will help keep us all working for a better world despite the obstacles.

Wachsmann punctuates the absorbing details of preserving this artifact with the rich history that surrounds the Sea of Galilee, making this a uniquely enduring and personal work. Wachsmann transports us enabling us to savor this voyage with him on one of the greatest archaeological expeditions of the twentieth century.

Vera Chatzman was born on November 27, 1881, in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. She was a medical student soon to become a pediatrician when, in 1906, she married Chaim Weizmann, a chemist already involved in the Zionist movement. For the next 46 years of their marriage, Vera was his companion, hostess, critic and adviser, with an intimate view of Weizmann’s career as scientist, diplomat and Jewish leader. In this memoir by the wife of a prominent man who held on to her own career, Vera Weizmann recounts momentous events in Zionist history and relates her impressions of personalities such as David Ben-Gurion, Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky, Albert Einstein, Isaiah Berlin, Harry Truman, Léon Blum and Arthur James Balfour. “The late Vera Weizmann, the wife of Israel’s first President, spent most of her life at the centre of Jewish history, and this book evokes, vividly, if painfully, the various crises suffered by the Jewish people before they finally attained Statehood... [Vera Weizmann’s] intensity of feelings makes it a moving social document.” — The Observer “... warm-hearted, engaging and often wise companion-volume to [Dr. Chaim Weizmann’s] magnificent Trial and Error... Its personal anecdotes... will enliven the Doctor’s more discreet paragraphs, and his carefully measured sentences.” — Sunday Telegraph “Vera Weizmann was one of the most remarkable personalities of those who led the great phase of Zionist development... This book contains her memories as related to her editor David Tutaev. He has succeeded in presenting her vivid self-portrait. Vera’s charm, will, wit and broad humour are here unmistakable and authentic.” — Christopher Sykes, Sunday Times (London) “The memoirs of Mrs. Chaim Weizmann are invested with the qualities of character, exacting civilized standards, and independence of spirit which her collaborator, Mr. Tutaev remarks upon in his memorial foreword (Mrs. Weizmann died in 1966 after approving proofs of this book). They reveal also that Mrs. Weizmann participated in her husband's public life fully and intimately; her book is a personal record of the Zionist movement at the highest level.” — Kirkus Reviews “In an age dominated by the big battalions the individual with nothing but the moral force of an idea can still make an impact on the world given the will, perseverance and character. The memoirs of the State of Israel’s first First Lady exemplify this truth while presenting a vivid panorama covering eighty-five eventful years... Affairs of state, conversations with Churchill, Truman, Lloyd George, Smuts, Orde Wingate, rub shoulders with the worries of everyday life, proud boasts with frank admissions. It is a most personal and revealing document as well as saga of achievement.” —Birmingham Post “Like Chaim Weizmann’s memoirs Trial and Error, it is a book that adds to history, and is the story of a miraculous achievement... [Vera Weizmann] records faithfully the principal political events affecting Zionism, and Chaim’s encounters with the statesmen and people who mattered in several countries. She has a talent for remembering good stories and witty conversations. Her book supplements the more political memoirs of her husband, adding picturesque details of the heroic period of Zionism, of the negotiations over years about the Balfour Declaration, and of the Jewish-English partnership in building the National Home.” — Jewish Chronicle

A captivating and profound debut novel about complicated love and the friendships that have the power to transform you forever, perfect for fans of Nina LaCour and of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Mira is starting over at Saint Francis Prep. She promised her parents she would at least try to pretend that she could act like a functioning human this time, not a girl who can’t get out of bed for days on end, who only feels awake when she’s with Sebby. Jeremy is the painfully shy art nerd at Saint Francis who’s been in self-imposed isolation after an incident that ruined his last year of school. When he sees Sebby for the first time across the school lawn it’s as if he’s been expecting this blond, lanky boy with a mischief glinting in his eye. Sebby, Mira’s gay best friend, is a boy who seems to carry sunlight around with him . Even as life in his foster home starts to take its toll, Sebby and Mira together craft a world of magic rituals and impromptu road trips, designed to fix the broken parts of their lives. As Jeremy finds himself drawn into Sebby and Mira’s world, he begins to understand the secrets that they hide in order to protect themselves, to keep each other safe from those who don’t understand their quest to live for the impossible.

A treasury of thought-provoking declarations and observations features a splendid variety of political, scientific, social, and literary voices. Quoted historical figures include Paine, Milton, Emerson, Marx, Napoleon, Dickens, and Churchill.

A chilling, wildly original novel from a major new voice from South Korea The Impossible Fairy Tale is the story of two unexceptional grade-school girls. Mia is “lucky”—she is spoiled by her mother and, as she explains, her two fathers. She gloats over her exotic imported color pencils and won’t be denied a coveted sweater. Then there is the Child who, by contrast, is neither lucky nor unlucky. She makes so little impression that she seems not even to merit a name. At school, their fellow students, whether lucky or luckless or unlucky, seem consumed by an almost murderous rage. Adults are nearly invisible, and the society the children create on their own is marked by cruelty and soul-crushing hierarchies. Then, one day, the Child sneaks into the classroom after hours and adds ominous sentences to her classmates’ notebooks. This sinister but initially inconsequential act unlocks a series of events that end in horrible violence. But that is not the end of this eerie, unpredictable novel. A teacher, who is also this book’s author, wakes from an intense dream. When she arrives at her next class, she recognizes a student: the Child, who knows about the events of the novel’s first half, which took place years earlier. Han Yujoo’s The Impossible Fairy Tale is a fresh and terrifying exploration of the ethics of art making and of the stinging consequences of neglect.