Too Soon To Tell

Based on author David A. Grier's column "In Our Time," which runs monthly in Computer magazine, Too Soon To Tell presents a collection of essays skillfully written about the computer age, an era that began February 1946. Examining ideas that are both contemporary and timeless, these chronological essays examine the revolutionary nature of the computer, the relation between machines and human institutions, and the connections between fathers and sons to provide general readers with a picture of a specific technology that attempted to rebuild human institutions in its own image.

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.

The topical essays of Too Soon to Tell reveal Calvin Trillin at his barbed and irrepressible best. Dealing with matters of the family, he tells the tale of a couple who were at first pleased that their twenty-six-year-old son had finally moved out ("If Jeffrey's going to find himself, it would probably help for him to look somewhere other than his own room") and then realized that they had lost the ability to videotape. Grappling with educational issues, he discusses whether the presence of Michael Milken as a lecturer at the UCLA business school means that its religion department will get around to employing Jim Bakker ("Church Management 101: Imaginative Ideas in Religious Fund-Raising"). In the field of world affairs, he deals with the role of astrologers ("The planets are perfect for trading arms for hostages and saying you didn't") and whether the language laws in Quebec really require the hiring of a mime who doesn't speak French rather than a mime who doesn't speak English. Trillin's short takes send us back to life refreshed and delighted.

“[Art Buchwald] has given his friends, their families, and his audiences so many laughs and so much joy through the years that that alone would be an enduring legacy. But Art has never been just about the quick laugh. His humor is a road map to essential truths and insights that might otherwise have eluded us.”—Tom Brokaw When doctors told Art Buchwald that his kidneys were kaput, the renowned humorist declined dialysis and checked into a Washington, D.C., hospice to live out his final days. Months later, “The Man Who Wouldn’t Die” was still there, feeling good, holding court in a nonstop “salon” for his family and dozens of famous friends, and confronting things you usually don’t talk about before you die; he even jokes about them. Here Buchwald shares not only his remarkable experience—as dozens of old pals from Ethel Kennedy to John Glenn to the Queen of Swaziland join the party—but also his whole wonderful life: his first love, an early brush with death in a foxhole on Eniwetok Atoll, his fourteen champagne years in Paris, fame as a columnist syndicated in hundreds of newspapers, and his incarnation as hospice superstar. Buchwald also shares his sorrows: coping with an absent mother, childhood in a foster home, and separation from his wife, Ann. He plans his funeral (with a priest, a rabbi, and Billy Graham, to cover all the bases) and strategizes how to land a big obituary in The New York Times (“Make sure no head of state or Nobel Prize winner dies on the same day”). He describes how he and a few of his famous friends finagled cut-rate burial plots on Martha’s Vineyard and how he acquired a Picasso drawing without really trying. What we have here is a national treasure, the complete Buchwald, uncertain of where the next days or weeks may take him but unfazed by the inevitable, living life to the fullest, with frankness, dignity, and humor.

It is possible to find true love through dating. In True Love Dates, Debra Fileta encourages singles not to "kiss dating goodbye" but instead to experience a season of dating as a way to find real love. Through powerful, real-life stories and Fileta's personal journey, this book offers profound insights from the expertise of a professional counselor. Christians are looking for answers to finding true love. They are disillusioned with the church that has provided little practical application in the area of love and relationships. They're bombarded by Christian books that shun dating, idolize courting, fixate on spirituality, and in the end, offer little real relationship help. True Love Dates provides honest help for dating by providing a guide into vital relationship essentials. Debra is a professional Christian counselor who reaches millions with her popular blog, Truelovedates.com, and her book offers sound advice grounded in Christian spirituality. She delivers insight, direction, and counsel when it comes to entering the world of dating and learning to do it right the first time around. Drawing on the stories and struggles of hundreds of young men and women who have pursued the search for true love, Fileta helps readers bypass unnecessary pain while focusing on the things that really matter in the world of dating.

The inspiring story of Juniper, a baby born too soon, gorgeously told by her parents, both award-winning journalists. Juniper French was born four months early, at 23 weeks' gestation. She weighed 1 pound, 4 ounces, and her twiggy body was the length of a Barbie doll. Her head was smaller than a tennis ball, her skin was nearly translucent, and through her chest you could see her flickering heart. Babies like Juniper, born at the edge of viability, trigger the question: Which is the greater act of love -- to save her, or to let her go? Kelley and Thomas French chose to fight for Juniper's life, and this is their incredible tale. In one exquisite memoir, the authors explore the border between what is possible and what is right. They marvel at the science that conceived and sustained their daughter and the love that made the difference. They probe the bond between a mother and a baby, between a husband and a wife. They trace the journey of their family from its fragile beginning to the miraculous survival of their now thriving daughter.

On a winter's night in July 2012, Kathy and Ralph Kelly received a phone call no parent should ever have to answer. It was the Emergency department of a Sydney hospital, telling them that their eldest son Thomas had been in an altercation and that they were to come at once. Thomas had been coward punched by a total stranger within two minutes of getting out of a taxi in Kings Cross, on his way to a private 18th birthday party of a friend. Two days after that first phone call Kathy and Ralph were told that their son had suffered catastrophic head injuries resulting in brain death. They were advised that there was no other option but to switch off his life support. He was 18 years old. In the aftermath of their son's death, Kathy and Ralph became the public face of the campaign to end the drunken violence that plagued Sydney's major nightspots. Along with Premiers Barry O'Farrell and Mike Baird they helped institute the lock out laws that have been a major factor in the reduction of alcohol related deaths and injuries in Darling Harbour, Kings Cross and Sydney's CBD. They were also instrumental in creating Take Kare Safe Spaces ('Kare' with a 'K' after Thomas's initials) for young people in key nightspots, which has now registered over 52,000 interventions since December 2014, what the Kellys call 'sliding door moments', the difference between a young person's life continuing on as normal or degenerating into something terrible. And they were one of the driving forces behind the introduction of tougher sentencing for 'coward-punch' deaths. But their campaigning created a huge toll on their family. Online intimidation, death threats and false news about the mishandling of donations came from those with a stake in the clubs and businesses who were the lock out laws financial losers. When Stuart Kelly, Thomas's younger brother, went for his first night at University of Sydney's St Paul's College, Ralph and Kathy believe the bullying he experienced because of the family's profile was so traumatising he left university for good the next day, and wouldn't tell his parents exactly what he'd been made to endure. Five months later, on July 25th 2016, Stuart took his own life. This book is the Kellys' story. How they coped with one unimaginable tragedy, only to find that it had sowed the seed for another. How in the face of these terrible losses they have found the spirit and the drive to campaign first for a safer environment for all our children, and for a greater understanding of young people's self-harm and its drivers.

Jack Blackjack is ordered to eliminate a spy in Princess Elizabeth’s household in this engaging Tudor mystery. June, 1554. Former cutpurse and now professional assassin Jack Blackjack has deep misgivings about his latest assignment. He has been despatched to the Palace of Woodstock, where Queen Mary’s half-sister Princess Elizabeth is being kept under close guard. Jack’s employer has reason to believe that a spy has been installed within the princess’s household, and Jack has been ordered to kill her. Jack has no choice but to agree. But he arrives at Woodstock to discover that a murder has already been committed. As he sets out to prove his innocence by uncovering the real killer, Jack finds the palace to be a place steeped in misery and deceit; a hotbed of illicit love affairs, seething resentments, clashing egos and bitter jealousies. But who among Woodstock’s residents is hiding a deadly secret – and will Jack survive long enough to find out?