The Choices We Made

The Choices We Made
Author: Angela Bonavoglia
Publisher: Seal Press
Total Pages: 201
Release: 1991
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781568581880

First published a decade ago, a collection of testimonials from women denied access to legal abortion shares the stories of teenagers, college students, and young mothers and offers a passionate argument for access to safe, legal abortions. Original.

The Choices I've Made

The Choices I've Made
Author: J.L. Berg
Publisher: J.L. Berg
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2017-10-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0998391239

High school sweethearts reunite in this heartfelt second chance romance. Twelve years ago, he drove away with my heart in his hands. I’ve moved on since then. Or so I thought. Growing up in a small town, there weren’t many options when it came to friends. But, even in a sea of a million, I’d always choose Jake Jameson. He made me feel safe - safe with my secrets, dreams, and eventually – my heart. I believed we would have forever together. That was a long time ago. I thought I’d forgotten those piercing blue eyes and the sound of his laugh. I tried to obliterate the memory of his touch from my mind. Yet, one single glance as he stands at my door twelve years later, and I'm instantly transported back to a simpler time when love was effortless and my heart was whole. The problem? I’m marrying his best friend.

The Choices We Make

The Choices We Make
Author: Karma Brown
Publisher: MIRA
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2016-07-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1459293983

"Karma Brown's work is as smart as it is effortless to read." —Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Reese's Book Club Pick Daisy Jones & The Six From #1 internationally bestselling author of Recipe for a Perfect Wife comes an unforgettable story that explores the intricate dynamics of friendship and parenthood Best friends Hannah and Kate have been inseparable almost all of their lives. While they're close as sisters, Hannah can't help but feel envious of the little family Kate and her husband, David, have created—complete with two perfect little girls. She and Ben have been trying for years to have a baby, so when they receive the news that she will likely never get pregnant, Hannah's heartbreak is overwhelming. They begin to tentatively explore the other options, and Kate offers to be Hannah's surrogate. But as these two families embark on an incredible journey toward parenthood, a devastating tragedy puts everything at risk of falling apart. Poignant, twisty and refreshingly honest, The Choices We Make is a powerful tale of an incredible friendship and the risks we take to make our dreams come true.

Why I Stayed

Why I Stayed
Author: Gayle Haggard
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2010-01-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1414340818

On November 2, 2006, Gayle Haggard’s life changed forever. That was the day that her husband, Ted Haggard, founder of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs and the President of the NAE, confessed to her the truth. In Why I Stayed, Gayle walks us through the choices she made in her darkest hours. On the day and in the months ahead, everything in her life was at stake—what she believed, the husband she thought she knew, and the church community she had worked tirelessly to establish with her husband and friends in the basement of their home more than two decades ago. Out of this crucible in her life, Gayle has discovered a newfound passion for the central message of the Bible—the liberating message of forgiveness and love. Why I Stayed is a must-read. It paints a picture of what less-than-perfect people, across this nation and all over the world, desperately need—a community of family and faith that offers healing love and a path to restoration.

The Paradox of Choice

The Paradox of Choice
Author: Barry Schwartz
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2009-10-13
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0061748994

Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions—both big and small—have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice—the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish—becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.

Men Speak Out

Men Speak Out
Author: Shira Tarrant
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2013-02-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1135127433

Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power, Second Edition highlights new essays on pornography, pop culture, queer identity, Muslim masculinity, and the war on women. With personal candor and political insight, this collection of diverse authors explores sex work, digital activism, incarceration, domestic violence, surviving incest, and standing firmly as male allies facing the backlash against women’s reproductive rights. Featuring eleven new essays and six revised thematic sections, this second edition of a favorite anthology continues to encourage robust discussion and vibrant debate about masculinity and the possibilities for progressive change. The contemporary, compelling essays in Men Speak Out appeal to students, scholars, activists, and everyday readers.

The Choices We Make

The Choices We Make
Author: Robert T. Gardner Jr.
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 135
Release: 2010-03-25
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1462817521

The Choices We Make is a book that tells a compelling story about bad relationship choices that resulted in enormous consequences. This book emphasizes the importance of self-love, a key element to making good relationship choices. You will be provided with insight on "People Types that mean you no good and "Games People Play" that have nothing to do with love. There are tips and tools in the Relationship Lab to educate men and women on how to avoid bad relationships with the wrong people. This book intends to transform the way you think about the relationship choices you make.

A Spark of Light

A Spark of Light
Author: Jodi Picoult
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2018-10-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0345544994

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of Small Great Things returns with a powerful and provocative new novel about ordinary lives that intersect during a heart-stopping crisis. “Picoult at her fearless best . . . Timely, balanced and certain to inspire debate.”—The Washington Post The warm fall day starts like any other at the Center—a women’s reproductive health services clinic—its staff offering care to anyone who passes through its doors. Then, in late morning, a desperate and distraught gunman bursts in and opens fire, taking all inside hostage. After rushing to the scene, Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, sets up a perimeter and begins making a plan to communicate with the gunman. As his phone vibrates with incoming text messages he glances at it and, to his horror, finds out that his fifteen-year-old daughter, Wren, is inside the clinic. But Wren is not alone. She will share the next and tensest few hours of her young life with a cast of unforgettable characters: A nurse who calms her own panic in order to save the life of a wounded woman. A doctor who does his work not in spite of his faith but because of it, and who will find that faith tested as never before. A pro-life protester, disguised as a patient, who now stands in the crosshairs of the same rage she herself has felt. A young woman who has come to terminate her pregnancy. And the disturbed individual himself, vowing to be heard. Told in a daring and enthralling narrative structure that counts backward through the hours of the standoff, this is a story that traces its way back to what brought each of these very different individuals to the same place on this fateful day. One of the most fearless writers of our time, Jodi Picoult tackles a complicated issue in this gripping and nuanced novel. How do we balance the rights of pregnant women with the rights of the unborn they carry? What does it mean to be a good parent? A Spark of Light will inspire debate, conversation . . . and, hopefully, understanding. Praise for A Spark of Light “This is Jodi Picoult at her best: tackling an emotional hot-button issue and putting a human face on it.”—People “Told backward and hour by hour, Jodi Picoult’s compelling narrative deftly explores controversial social issues.”—Us Weekly

Feast Your Eyes

Feast Your Eyes
Author: Myla Goldberg
Publisher: Scribner
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2020-02-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1501197851

ONE OF NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF 2019 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence Finalist 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist 2020 Chautauqua Prize Finalist “A daringly inventive parable of female creativity and motherhood” (O, The Oprah Magazine) from Myla Goldberg, the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Bee Season, about a female photographer grappling with ambition and motherhood—a balancing act familiar to women of every generation. Feast Your Eyes, framed as the catalogue notes from a photography show at the Museum of Modern Art, tells the life story of Lillian Preston: “America’s Worst Mother, America’s Bravest Mother, America’s Worst Photographer, or America’s Greatest Photographer, depending on who was talking.” After discovering photography as a teenager through her high school’s photo club, Lillian rejects her parents’ expectations of college and marriage and moves to New York City in 1955. When a small gallery exhibits partially nude photographs of Lillian and her daughter Samantha, Lillian is arrested, thrust into the national spotlight, and targeted with an obscenity charge. Mother and daughter’s sudden notoriety changes the course of both of their lives, and especially Lillian’s career as she continues a life-long quest for artistic legitimacy and recognition. “A searching consideration of the way that the identities and perceptions of a female artist shift over time” (The New Yorker), Feast Your Eyes shares Samantha’s memories, interviews with Lillian’s friends and lovers, and excerpts from Lillian’s journals and letters—a collage of stories and impressions, together amounting to an astounding portrait of a mother and an artist dedicated, above all, to a vision of beauty, truth, and authenticity. Myla Goldberg has gifted us with “a mother-daughter story, an art-monster story, and an exciting structural gambit” (Lit Hub)—and, in the end, “a universal and profound story of love and loss” (New York Newsday).

The Elements of Choice

The Elements of Choice
Author: Eric J. Johnson
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2021-10-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0593084438

A leader in decision-making research reveals how choices are designed—and why it’s so important to understand their inner workings Every time we make a choice, our minds go through an elaborate process most of us never even notice. We’re influenced by subtle aspects of the way the choice is presented that often make the difference between a good decision and a bad one. How do we overcome the common faults in our decision-making and enable better choices in any situation? The answer lies in more conscious and intentional decision design. Going well beyond the familiar concepts of nudges and defaults, The Elements of Choice offers a comprehensive, systematic guide to creating effective choice architectures, the environments in which we make decisions. The designers of decisions need to consider all the elements involved in presenting a choice: how many options to offer, how to present those options, how to account for our natural cognitive shortcuts, and much more. These levers are unappreciated and we’re often unaware of just how much they influence our reasoning every day. Eric J. Johnson is the lead researcher behind some of the most well-known and cited research on decision-making. He draws on his original studies and extensive work in business and public policy and synthesizes the latest research in the field to reveal how the structure of choices affects outcomes. We are all choice architects, for ourselves and for others. Whether you’re helping students choose the right school, helping patients pick the best health insurance plan, or deciding how to invest for your own retirement, this book provides the tools you need to guide anyone to the decision that’s right for them.