When Real Life Begins

The authors offer advice for young people about beginning life on their own away from their parents, delivered with humor, quotes, frequently asked questions, lists, and other diverse approaches.

THE #1 FRENCH BESTSELLER MORE THAN 3 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE The feel-good #1 bestselling French novel about a woman whose mission to cure her "routine-itis" leads her to lasting joy and true fulfillment, for fans of The Alchemist and Hector and the Search for Happiness. At thirty-eight and a quarter years old, Paris native Camille has everything she needs to be happy, or so it seems: a good job, a loving husband, a wonderful son. Why then does she feel as if happiness has slipped through her fingers? All she wants is to find the path to joy. When Claude, a French Sean Connery look-alike and routinologist, offers his unique advice to help get her there, she seizes the opportunity with both hands. Camille's journey is full of surprising escapades, creative capers, and deep meaning, as she sets out to transform her life and realize her dreams one step at a time...

It's never too late to start again... If Life Begins at Forty, then Charlotte Turner's life is not off to the best of starts. On top of a recent divorce and trouble with her twelve-year-old son, the husband of her closest friend has just started to show a bit too much interest in her as a newly-single woman. But only when Charlotte has faced up to some uncomfortable truths about her past can she finally shed the unhappy skin she's been so comfortable in and open up her life and her heart to all the promise and possibility that her future holds. Is life, for Charlotte, about to begin at last... ?

Dr. Frieda Birnbaum made headlines eight years ago when she gave birth to twin boys at the age of sixty. And despite being a psychotherapist who had counseled other mothers for decades, Birnbaum secretly wondered: What have I gotten myself into? Can I keep up? It turned out she could, and then some. Like so many people who take on new things at age sixty and older, Birnbaum discovered a new lease on life. She felt more energized than ever (on most days, anyway) to run after twins Josh and Jaret. She parlayed the fame into TV and radio appearances, commenting on subjects from Bill Cosby to Hillary Clinton. Her psychotherapy practice flourished. And as she reinvigorated her career, her relationships with her family, including her husband of more than forty years, grew even stronger. To be incredible mothers (and partners), Birnbaum believes women must be fulfilled and challenged as people first. The secret, she discovered, was to welcome growing older rather than fear it. This captivating and inspiring memoir is complemented with practical advice for a positive outlook and staying active while aging. As Birnbaum reveals, it’s possible, even easy, to look and feel fabulous—and glamorous—in our sixties and well beyond.

Approach each day with joy, build positive expectations, and begin living your best life with this year of devotions designed to strengthen your faith and resolve. Bestselling author Joel Osteen writes, "When you get up in the morning, the first things you should do is set your mind in the right direction . . . and then go out anticipating good things." Now, for the first time, Pastor Osteen presents a tool to accomplish that goal. Based on his book, Your Best Life Now, he offers prescriptions for positive living in 365 daily messages. Each message is accompanied by a relevant scripture.

From the moment of fertilization until the day of birth, the extraordinary life of a fetus is chronicled in this awe-inspiring volume drawn from the latest in pre-natal research. "How Life Begins, taking advantage of the relatively recent advent of ultrasound technology and other imaging techniques, offers a month-by-month guide to what a developing baby is seeing, hearing, dreaming about, and how it is accomplishing the miracle of preparing to be human. Readers will discover: How a fetus's eye movements work to "boot up" the computer that is its brain How the hands and feet commit programmed suicide to create fingers and What role genetics plays in determining an infant's sexual identity and personality How the baby becomes the choreographer of the mother's labor, and the director of his or her own birth Interviews with leading researchers combine with truly remarkable photography to make "How Life Begins an unforgettable journey marking the passage from single cell to bright-eyed baby.

In contemporary discussions of abortion, both sides argue well-worn positions, particularly concerning the question, When does human life begin? Though often invoked by the Catholic Church for support, Thomas Aquinas in fact held that human life begins after conception, not at the moment of union. But his overall thinking on questions of how humans come into being, and cease to be, is more subtle than either side in this polarized debate imagines. Fabrizio Amerini—an internationally-renowned scholar of medieval philosophy—does justice to Aquinas’ views on these controversial issues. Some pro-life proponents hold that Aquinas’ position is simply due to faulty biological knowledge, and if he knew what we know today about embryology, he would agree that human life begins at conception. Others argue that nothing Aquinas could learn from modern biology would have changed his mind. Amerini follows the twists and turns of Aquinas’ thinking to reach a nuanced and detailed solution in the final chapters that will unsettle familiar assumptions and arguments. Systematically examining all the pertinent texts and placing each in historical context, Amerini provides an accurate reconstruction of Aquinas’ account of the beginning and end of human life and assesses its bioethical implications for today. This major contribution is available to an English-speaking audience through translation by Mark Henninger, himself a noted scholar of medieval philosophy.