Too Much Too Soon

Recollections of the daughter of John Barrymore and Blanche Oelrichs Thomas.

Three sisters arrive in San Francisco after their mother dies with dreams of making a new life for themselves. Honora, the eldest, quickly falls in love with the suave and devastatingly handsome Curt Ivory, an employee at the engineering firm of the girls’ wealthy uncle, Gideon Talbott. When Gideon hears of the twosome’s romance, he fires Curt, and the young couple must flee down the Californian coast. Desperate to support himself and Honora, Curt starts his own firm, which quickly gains prominence and becomes Gideon’s biggest business rival. Meanwhile, Crystal, the beautiful but manipulative middle sister, and the spunky and clever younger daughterJocelyn are left with Gideon, and Crystal agrees to be Gideon’s wife out of greed rather than love. Jocelyn is horrified by Crystal’s choice and runs away to Los Angeles to live with Honora and Curt. In L.A., Crystal flourishes, graduating from a prestigious college and working as an engineer at Curt’s firm. Despite her talent in the workplace, she gives up her job to marry the charming but reserved Malcolm Peck, a decision that leads her to make choices she will later regret until the day she dies. Through it all, the three sisters remain connected by an unbreakable bond—one that is tested again and again by acts of betrayal and deceit, and twists of fate that shake them to their very core. A steamy saga that takes readers from engineering sites in the most remote corners of the globe, to the posh neighborhoods of Hollywood, and finally to a dramatic conclusion on the floor of the Senate, Too Much Too Soon is the ultimate exploration of love and the relationships that define us all.

The beloved bestselling collection of common sense wisdom from a celebrated psychologist and military veteran who proves it's never too late to move beyond the deepest of personal losses After service in Vietnam, as a surgeon for the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in 1968-69, at the height of the war, Dr. Gordon Livingston returned to the U.S. and began work as a psychiatrist. In that capacity, he has listened to people talk about their lives--what works, what doesn't, and the limitless ways (many of them self-inflicted) that people find to be unhappy. He is also a parent twice bereaved; in one thirteen-month period he lost his eldest son to suicide, his youngest to leukemia. Out of a lifetime of experience, Gordon Livingston has extracted thirty bedrock truths, including: We are what we do. Any relationship is under the control of the person who cares the least. The perfect is the enemy of the good. Only bad things happen quickly. Forgiveness is a form of letting go, but they are not the same thing. The statute of limitations has expired on most of our childhood traumas. Livingston illuminates these and twenty-four other truths in a series of carefully hewn, perfectly calibrated essays, many of which focus on our closest relationships and the things that we do to impede or, less frequently, enhance them. Again and again, these essays underscore that "we are what we do," and that while there may be no escaping who we are, we have the capacity to face loss, misfortune, and regret and to move beyond them--that it is not too late. Full of things we may know but have not articulated to ourselves, Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart offers solace, guidance, and hope to everyone ready to become the person they'd most like to be.

This title tackles the burning question of how to nurture young children's well-being and learning to reverse the erosion of childhood.

Too High, Too Far, Too Soon is the humorous, tragic and searingly honest memoir of a man who survived childhood tragedy, Catholic boarding school and chronic drug addiction. Simon Mason graphically details his experience of teenage angst in a tatty seaside town before he ran away to London and then onwards to the crack-infested streets of LA. He recounts his numerous decadent adventures at Glastonbury Festival and the notoriety that came during his stint as personal chemist to the biggest bands of the '90s, before he himself descended into a helpless period of heroin addiction. After several incidents of petty crime stemming from his drug problem, Simon launched numerous failed attempts to become a bona fide rock 'n' roll star and even more failed attempts to get clean, finally being ‘rescued’ by Banksy from a stolen camper van, covered in blood in the Spanish countryside. Too High, Too Far, Too Soon is a rock 'n' roll memoir with a difference, written by a man who lived the life and attained the drug habits of the most extreme rock stars, yet whose attempts to break through to the big time always eluded him.

Jim Talley and Bobbie Reed outline simple yet effective methods of building quality relationships while curtailing premature intimacy in this plain-spoken and experience-tested manual. A study guide at the end of the book features discussion questions and creative assignments for each chapter. Previous edition: 0840730454

Too Much Too Young investigates how age and gender have shaped the careers and images of pop music stars, examining the role of youth and youthfulness in pop music through a series of themed case studies. Whiteley begins by investigating the exploitation of child stars such as Brenda Lee and Michael Jackson, offering a psychoanalytic reading of the relationship between child star and oppressive manager, and looks at the current glut of boy- and girl- bands and stars in the mold of Britney Spears to examine the continuing fatal attraction of stardom for adolescents. Whiteley then considers the star images of female singer-songwriters Kate Bush, Tori Amos, and Bjork, whose 'little girl' voices and characterization by the media suggests a girlish feminitity which is often at odds with the intentions of their musical output. She then moves on to explore the rock/pop divide as it affects the image of male performers, considering why male stars usually fall into the category of 'wild boys' such as Kurt Cobain or Jim Morrison, or 'nice boys', like Cliff Richard, The Monkees, and Wham! Whiteley ends by asking what happens to stars who set so much store by manipulations of youthfulness when they begin to age, and points to stars like Robbie Williams, Kylie Minogue and Cher to demonstrate that it is possible to achieve iconic pop status even without dying young.