Layers - Uncovering and Celebrating God's Original Idea of Me

Joan Crawford was born Lucille LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas, in 1908 (as she always insisted, though other sources disagreed). Her father abandoned the family, and her mother soon remarried; Lucille was now known as Billie Cassin. Young Billie loved to dance and achieved her early success in silent films playing a dancer. Her breakthrough role came in Our Dancing Daughters. Soon married to Hollywood royalty, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (who called her "Billie"), she was a star in her own right, playing opposite John Barrymore and a stellar cast in M-G-M's Grand Hotel.

Crawford was cast opposite another young star, Clark Gable, in several films. They would sometimes play lovers on screen -- and off as well. After her marriage to Fairbanks broke up, Crawford married actor Franchot Tone. That marriage soon began to show strains, and Crawford was sometimes seen riding with Spencer Tracy, who gave her a horse she named Secret. Crawford left M-G-M for Warners, and around the time she married her third husband, Phillip Terry, she won her Oscar for best actress (one of three times she was nominated) in Mildred Pierce. But by the 1950s the film roles dried up. Crawford and Terry had divorced, and Crawford married her fourth husband, Pepsi-Cola executive Alfred Steele. In 1962, she and longtime cinematic rival Bette Davis staged a brief comeback in the macabre but commercial What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Following Steele's death, Crawford became a director of Pepsi- Cola while she continued raising her four adopted children. Although her daughter Christina would publish the scathing memoir Mommie Dearest after Crawford's death, Chandler offers a contrasting portrait of Crawford, drawing in part on reminiscences of younger daughter Cathy among others.

Not the Girl Next Door is perhaps Charlotte Chandler's finest Hollywood biography yet, an intimate portrait of a great star who was beautiful, talented, glamorous, and surprisingly vulnerable.

Drawing on extensive conversations with Bette Davis during the last decade of her life, Charlotte Chandler gives us a biography in which the great actress speaks for herself. (It was she who suggested that Chandler write this book.) Chandler also spoke with directors, actors, and others who knew and worked with Davis. As a result Davis comes to life in these pages -- a dynamic, forceful presence once again, just as she was on the screen.

Though she owed everything to her mother, Ruthie, Bette Davis remained fascinated all her life by her hard-to-please father, who walked out on his family. She remembered the disappointment -- which never left -- over her father's lack of interest in her, and she believed that her resentment of him was probably a major factor in her four failed marriages: she kept putting her men in a position where they would eventually disappoint her. She spoke happily of her love affairs with Howard Hughes and William Wyler; she recalled her leading men, favorite co-stars, and unloved rivals; and she took great care to refute the persistent Hollywood legend that she was difficult to work with. Alone and ill, she faced her last days with bravery and dignity.

The Girl Who Walked Home Alone is a brilliant portrait of an enduring icon from Hollywood's golden age and an unforgettable biography of the real woman behind the star.

Tried everything but still not feeling better?

If your depression keeps coming back or is even getting worse, then you may be suffering from bipolar II or “soft” bipolar disorder. Commonly misdiagnosed, these mood disorders are characterized by recurring bouts of depression along with anxiety, irritability, mood swings, sleep problems, or intrusive thoughts.

Why Am I Still Depressed? shows you how to identify if you have a nonmanic form of bipolar disorder and how to work with your doctor to safely and effectively treat it.

Author James R. Phelps, M.D., gives you the latest tools and knowledge so you can:

• Understand the Mood Spectrum, a powerful new tool for diagnosis
• Know all your treatment options, including mood-stabilizing medications and research-tested psychotherapies
• Examine the potential hazards of taking antidepressant medications
• Manage your condition with exercise and lifestyle changes
• Help family and friends with this condition understand their diagnosis and find treatment

The Pilgrim's Progress
From This World To That Which Is To Come

John Bunyan
[ZHINGOORA BOOKS]

For every mother who has thought, "I just blew it with my kids," for every wife who thinks she just can't stand to pretend anymore, for every friend who thinks she's reached the end of her patience, for every headline you read about someone who has compromised?there's a story that started from birth and led to the chapter she is currently surviving.

Sandi Patty knows more than a little about such stories. At the height of a spectacular singing career, Sandi found herself in the middle of an affair, a divorce, and a fall from grace that couldn't possibly have been more public.

How could she have mde those choices? What are the warning signs that disaster is ahead? What are the steps needed to rebuff temptation? How do you recover from such a visible shame? Is there life after failure?

Sandi describes the red flags that indicate a crisis on the horizon as well as the path to recovery. She shares how she managed to move on, with God's grace and the help of friends and family . . . and she shows how you can see crossroads looming in your own life and find safe places to fall. From relearning joy to finding the right support group, Sandi helps us all to begin anew, embracing the power of God's redemptive grace.

When young Sharon Lacey travels from Canada to England in the spring of 1940 in search of the father she never knew, she finds herself called upon to participate in a much larger and more dangerous mission. For at eighteen, she is a gifted flier in an England desperate for pilots to fend off the impending attack from Hitler’s Luftwaffe. In the months that follow, Sharon will be tested in ways that will affect the rest of her life—should she survive.

With Blackbirds, award-winning mystery novelist Garry Ryan turns his hand towards historical fiction, vividly evoking the fear and uncertainty of wartime England, as well as the spirit of camaraderie and adventure shared by the men—and women—who stepped forward to defend it.