Full of Heart

Full of Heart PDF Author: J.R. Martinez
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 1401304877
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
An inspirational journey from tragedy to triumph In 2003, nineteen-year-old Private J.R. Martinez was on a routine patrol when the Humvee he was driving hit an antitank mine in Iraq, resulting in severe injuries and burns on his face and more than one-third of his body. Out of that tragedy came an improbable journey of inspiration, motivation, and dreams come true. In Full of Heart, Martinez shares his story in intimate detail, from his upbringing in the American South and his time in the Army to his recovery and the indomitable spirit that has made him an inspiration to countless fans. J.R. Martinez always had a strong spirit. Raised in Bossier City, Louisiana, and then Hope, Arkansas, by a single mother from El Salvador, he was well known at school for his good looks and his smart mouth. At seventeen, showing an early determination and drive that would become one of his trademark qualities, J.R. convinced his mom to move to Dalton, Georgia, where he believed he would have a better chance of being recruited to play college football. His positive attitude earned him a spot on a competitive high school football squad, but when his college dreams collapsed, he turned to the U.S. Army. A few months later, he found himself serving in Iraq. When J.R.'s humvee hit a mine and exploded -- just one month into his deployment—he was immediately evacuated to a San Antonio medical center, where he spent the next thirty-four months in grueling recovery. Seeing his disfigured face for the first time after the accident threw him into a crushing period of confusion and anger. His spirits were low, until he was asked to speak to another young burn victim. J.R. realized how valuable and gratifying it was to share his experiences with other patients and listen to theirs. He’d found a calling. His fellow soldiers, along with the local and then national media, soon latched onto J.R.’s spirit and strength. His resilience, optimism, and charm were also noted by Hollywood and scored him roles on All My Children and Dancing with the Stars, where he was the season thirteen champion. Today, J.R. tours the country sharing his story and his lessons for overcoming challenges and embracing hope, lessons that abound in this book. Full of Heart is an unforgettable story of a man who never gave up on his dreams. After being injured in Iraq, J.R. Martinez became a motivational speaker, actor, and winner of season thirteen of Dancing with the Stars. Martinez lives in Los Angeles

Full of Heart

Full of Heart PDF Author: J.R. Martinez
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 1401304877
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 209

Get Book Here

Book Description
An inspirational journey from tragedy to triumph In 2003, nineteen-year-old Private J.R. Martinez was on a routine patrol when the Humvee he was driving hit an antitank mine in Iraq, resulting in severe injuries and burns on his face and more than one-third of his body. Out of that tragedy came an improbable journey of inspiration, motivation, and dreams come true. In Full of Heart, Martinez shares his story in intimate detail, from his upbringing in the American South and his time in the Army to his recovery and the indomitable spirit that has made him an inspiration to countless fans. J.R. Martinez always had a strong spirit. Raised in Bossier City, Louisiana, and then Hope, Arkansas, by a single mother from El Salvador, he was well known at school for his good looks and his smart mouth. At seventeen, showing an early determination and drive that would become one of his trademark qualities, J.R. convinced his mom to move to Dalton, Georgia, where he believed he would have a better chance of being recruited to play college football. His positive attitude earned him a spot on a competitive high school football squad, but when his college dreams collapsed, he turned to the U.S. Army. A few months later, he found himself serving in Iraq. When J.R.'s humvee hit a mine and exploded -- just one month into his deployment—he was immediately evacuated to a San Antonio medical center, where he spent the next thirty-four months in grueling recovery. Seeing his disfigured face for the first time after the accident threw him into a crushing period of confusion and anger. His spirits were low, until he was asked to speak to another young burn victim. J.R. realized how valuable and gratifying it was to share his experiences with other patients and listen to theirs. He’d found a calling. His fellow soldiers, along with the local and then national media, soon latched onto J.R.’s spirit and strength. His resilience, optimism, and charm were also noted by Hollywood and scored him roles on All My Children and Dancing with the Stars, where he was the season thirteen champion. Today, J.R. tours the country sharing his story and his lessons for overcoming challenges and embracing hope, lessons that abound in this book. Full of Heart is an unforgettable story of a man who never gave up on his dreams. After being injured in Iraq, J.R. Martinez became a motivational speaker, actor, and winner of season thirteen of Dancing with the Stars. Martinez lives in Los Angeles

Heart

Heart PDF Author: Lance Morrow
Publisher: Grand Central Pub
ISBN: 9780446518703
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
An award-winning essayist for Time magazine reflects on his life as a father and husband, his childhood in a family of journalists, and his career covering some of the world's most dangerous places. National ad/promo.

Native Country of the Heart

Native Country of the Heart PDF Author: Cherríe Moraga
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374718547
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
“[Written] with a poet’s verve. . . . This memoir’s beauty is in its fierce intimacy.” —Roy Hoffman, The New York Times Book Review Native Country of the Heart: A Memoir is, at its core, a mother-daughter story. The mother, Elvira, was hired out as a child, along with her siblings, by their own father to pick cotton in California’s Imperial Valley. The daughter, Cherríe Moraga, is a brilliant, pioneering, queer Latina feminist. The story of these two women, and of their people, is woven together in an intimate memoir of critical reflection and deep personal revelation. As a young woman, Elvira left California to work as a cigarette girl in glamorous late-1920s Tijuana, where a relationship with a wealthy white man taught her life lessons about power, sex, and opportunity. As Moraga charts her mother’s journey—from impressionable young girl to battle-tested matriarch to, later on, an old woman suffering under the yoke of Alzheimer’s—she traces her own self-discovery of her gender-queer body and Lesbian identity. As her mother’s memory fails, Moraga is driven to unearth forgotten remnants of a US Mexican diaspora, and an American story of cultural loss. Poetically wrought and filled with insight into intergenerational trauma, Native Country of the Heart is a reckoning with white American history and a piercing love letter from a fearless daughter to her mother. “A masterpiece of literary art.” —Michael Nava, Los Angeles Review of Books “Poignant, beautifully written.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review “A defiant, deep and soulful book about all our mothers, mother cultures, motherlands and languages.” —Julia Alvarez, national bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies

Now My Heart Is Full

Now My Heart Is Full PDF Author: Laura June
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143130919
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
A deeply affecting memoir of motherhood and daughterhood, and how we talk about both, from popular writer Laura June “Laura June writes with wit and melancholy, unabashed joy and tenderness. . . . When I reached the end, I found myself in tears.” —Roxane Gay Laura June’s daughter, Zelda, was only a few moments old when she held her for the first time, looked into her eyes, and thought, I wish my mother were here. It wasn’t a thought she was used to having. Laura was in second grade when she realized her mother was an alcoholic. As the years went by, she spiraled deeper, and by the time of her death, before Zelda’s birth, the two had drifted apart entirely. In Now My Heart is Full, Laura June explores how raising her daughter forced her to confront this tragic legacy and recognize the connective tissue that binds generations of women together. As she documents in beautiful and irreverent prose the pain and joy of raising a child, Laura shows how, even a generation later, we still do not have the language to fully discuss the change that a woman undergoes when she becomes a parent and finds that, to her surprise, she has more in common with her mother than she ever knew.

Unbreak My Heart

Unbreak My Heart PDF Author: Toni Braxton
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062293303
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
The bestselling solo R&B artist finally opens up about her rocky past and her path to redemption While Toni Braxton may appear to be living a charmed life, hers is in fact a tumultuous story: a tale of personal triumph after a public unraveling. In her heartfelt memoir, the six-time Grammy Award-winning singer and star of WE tv's hit reality series Braxton Family Values is unapologetically honest in revealing the intimate details of her journey. Toni and the entire Braxton clan have become America's favorite musical family, but what fans may not know is the intense guilt Toni once felt when she accepted a recording deal that excluded her sisters. That decision would haunt Toni for years to come, tainting the enormous fame she experienced as a popular female vocalist at the top of the charts. Despite her early accomplishments, Toni's world crumbled when she was forced to file for bankruptcy twice and was left all alone to pick up the pieces. Always the consummate professional, Toni rebuilt her life but then found herself in the midst of more heartache. The mother of an autistic child, Toni had long feared that her son's condition might be karmic retribution for some of the life choices that left her filled with remorse. Later, when heart ailments began plaguing her at the age of forty-one and she was diagnosed with lupus, Toni knew she had to move beyond the self-recrimination and take charge of her own healing—physically and spiritually. Unbreak My Heart is more than the story of Toni's difficult past and glittering success: it is a story of hope, of healing, and, ultimately, of redemption.

A Patriot’s Memoirs of World War Ii

A Patriot’s Memoirs of World War Ii PDF Author: Luciano Louis Charles Graziano
Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
ISBN: 1489720499
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
It was January 1943 when twenty-year-old Louis Graziano received a letter from Uncle Sam ordering him to report to Fort Niagara, New York, for a physical. Although he knew the United States was at war, he had no idea what was ahead of him. After making a promise to dutifully defend his country, Louis never realized how much his military experience would change the course of his life. In a memoir that reveals the good, bad, and ugly of war and beyond, Louis leads others through his life experiences via personal stories and historical photographs that provide a candid glimpse into what it was like to be a young soldier before, during, and after World War II. While revealing his experiences and thoughts, Louis demonstrates how he exhibited courage amid heartbreaking loss, trusted God to protect him, and found love with a beautiful fellow soldier. Among his documented experiences were landing with the third wave on D-Day on Omaha Beach, fighting the Battle of the Bulge, and witnessing the signing of the Instrument of Surrender at the Little Red Schoolhouse. Included are personal letters and commendations as well as interesting historical facts. A Patriot’s Memoirs of World War II shares a veteran’s personal story and photographs that document his experiences during the biggest and deadliest war in history.

Memoirs from the Heart

Memoirs from the Heart PDF Author: Colin Dalton
Publisher: Author House
ISBN: 149182218X
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
Pre-Service Teacher Biographies Hany Carreño I am a student at the University of Houston-Downtown, currently pursuing a Bachelor's degree in EC-6 Bilingual Education. I was mesmerized by the creativity and effort that the students put into this project. It was an unforgettable experience that helped me understand the need for creativity and inspiration in our youth. It was a privilege to work with these students and see them exploiting their creative talent. Romina Escobar I am a pre-service teacher in the Department of Urban Education at the University of Houston-Downtown. I assisted Jasmine N., Amy M., Miriam L., and Caymen J. in the writing of the poetry within this book. I was presently surprised with the level of literary talent among my group of teenage girls housed at the detention facility. As a future Early Childhood through 6th grade Bilingual Teacher, I plan to replicate this project with future students. Nazira Ghazal I am currently a student of the University of Houston-Downtown, perusing an Interdisciplinary Education EC-6 degree. I love working with kids, so I was honored and very excited to be a part of this great program. Being a part of this program opened up my eyes to how much our kids need guidance; I hope that one day I can work with children and become a role model or someone they can look up to.

Heart: A History

Heart: A History PDF Author: Sandeep Jauhar
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374717001
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
The bestselling author of Intern and Doctored tells the story of the thing that makes us tick For centuries, the human heart seemed beyond our understanding: an inscrutable shuddering mass that was somehow the driver of emotion and the seat of the soul. As the cardiologist and bestselling author Sandeep Jauhar shows in Heart: A History, it was only recently that we demolished age-old taboos and devised the transformative procedures that have changed the way we live. Deftly alternating between key historical episodes and his own work, Jauhar tells the colorful and little-known story of the doctors who risked their careers and the patients who risked their lives to know and heal our most vital organ. He introduces us to Daniel Hale Williams, the African American doctor who performed the world’s first open heart surgery in Gilded Age Chicago. We meet C. Walton Lillehei, who connected a patient’s circulatory system to a healthy donor’s, paving the way for the heart-lung machine. And we encounter Wilson Greatbatch, who saved millions by inventing the pacemaker—by accident. Jauhar deftly braids these tales of discovery, hubris, and sorrow with moving accounts of his family’s history of heart ailments and the patients he’s treated over many years. He also confronts the limits of medical technology, arguing that future progress will depend more on how we choose to live than on the devices we invent. Affecting, engaging, and beautifully written, Heart: A History takes the full measure of the only organ that can move itself.

Spoken From the Heart

Spoken From the Heart PDF Author: Laura Bush
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1847378994
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 729

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Book Description
In a captivating and compelling voice that ranks with many of our greatest memoirists, Laura Bush tells the story of her unique path from dusty Midland, Texas to the world stage and the White House. An only child, Laura Welch grew up in a family that lost three babies to miscarriage or infant death. She masterfully recreates the rugged, oil boom-and-bust culture of Midland, her close relationship with her father, and the bonds of early friendships that she retains to this day. For the first time, in heart-wrenching detail, she writes about her tragic car accident that left her friend Mike Douglas dead. Laura Welch attended Southern Methodist University in an era on the cusp of monumental change. After graduating, she became an elementary school teacher, working in inner city schools, then trained as a librarian. At age thirty, she met George W. Bush, whom she had last passed in the hallway in seventh grade. Three months later, 'the old maid of Midland married Midland's most eligible bachelor'. As First Lady of Texas, Laura Bush championed education and launched the Texas Book Festival, passions she brought to the White House. Here, she captures presidential life in the frantic and fearful months after 9-11, when fighter jet cover echoed through the walls. She writes openly about the threats, the withering media spotlight, and the transformation of her role. One of the first U.S. officials to visit war-torn Afghanistan, she reached out to disease-stricken African nations and tirelessly advocated for women in the Middle East and dissidents in Burma. With deft humor and a sharp eye, Laura Bush lifts the curtain on what really happens inside the White House. And she writes with honesty and eloquence about her family, political life, and her eight remarkable Washington years. Laura Bush's compassion, her sense of humour, her grace, and her uncommon willingness to bare her heart make this story deeply revelatory, beautifully rendered, and unlike any other First Lady's memoir ever written.

A Hungry Heart

A Hungry Heart PDF Author: Gordon Parks
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743269039
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
Acclaimed photographer, filmmaker, composer, and author Gordon Parks reflects on his life achievements and the social and political events he has witnessed.