Our lives are precious. Never more so than for 19-year-old Alexander Stobbs who has been a cystic fibrosis sufferer from birth. For him, each day could be his last. But as he says in the BAFTA-nominated documentary - A Boy Called Alex - 'you can't do stuff if you're afraid'.A truly inspiring story of a young musician determined to live his dreams, Alex takes us on his journey to survive a daily round of drugs and treatments as he also prepares for his yearning ambition to conduct Bach's three-hour-long St Matthew Passion. Everything we take for granted is a struggle for Alex - eating, sleeping, even breathing. His determination to live life to the full, constantly striving for perfection in his musical performance, is set against the exhausting every day rigours of medication and treatment simply to keep him alive. Yet he has already achieved some extraordinary goals. An Eton scholar, he has now won a further music scholarship to King's College, Cambridge. Introduced here by his mother Suzanne, Alex's account of living with no certainty about his future is a spur to all of us to make every day count.

The biography of an enigmatic Victorian pioneer. The first critical appraisal of this sporting legend and antiquary, using his own archives and writings. Important glimpses of everyday Victorian life. Suitable for those with interests in sport, local history, genealogy and record editing. Walter Rye was a London solicitor until he retired to Norwich, but it was three spare-time passions that earned him his place in the Dictionary of National Biography: physical exercise, record-searching, and a devotion to his ancestral county of Norfolk. His love of the outdoors was unbounded: athlete, cyclist, sailor and archer, keen amateur gardener and naturalist. Despite this, mortal illness seemed to stalk him, and yet he lived well into his eighties. In A Passion for Records, Rye’s prolific writings as author, columnist and correspondent, replete with witty put-downs, offer many laugh-out-loud moments. His antiquarian writings invite more serious attention, after cautionary tales about his editorial techniques.

This text argues that justice is a virtue which everyone shares - a function of personal character and not just of government or economic planning. It uses examples from Plato to Ivan Boesky, to document how we live and how we feel.

The average American spends about ten minutes per day in religious or spiritual activities. Do you believe you can experience a personal transformation if all you have is ten minutes a day? Or could these ten minutes be part of a more comprehensive plan for personal and global revolution? Could ten minutes be a mustard seed that God grows into something amazing? Pastor and author Chris Altrock believes it can! Rather than complain about ten minutes being too insignificant for spiritual growth, Altrock teaches practices to maximize that time for personal transformation and real social change. In only ten minutes a day over forty days, you'll learn a dozen spiritual disciplines to deepen your relationship with God. You'll also learn and see how God can use even the smallest amounts of time to change you and the world through your actions. Are you ready for ten minutes to actually make a difference?

Khalil Totahs life spanned the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, the British Mandate in Palestine, and the foundation of the state of Israel. His passion for education drove him to leave his native Palestine for the US in 1906 to complete his education, which culminated in a PhD from Columbia University. His next adventure, in France during World War I, was followed by a return to Palestine with a beautiful American wife. Having achieved his education and successfully navigated life transitions, he set out to serve as principal of a teacher-training college in Jerusalem. Later he became principal of the Friends Boys School in Ramallah, the Quaker school that had taught and mentored him. In spite of work-related struggles and a family tragedy, he built and developed the school throughout the Arab Peasant Revolt and the British Mandate. He was esteemed and venerated by his people for his leadership. In 1944, Khalil and his family returned to the US, where he continued his career in education as director of the Arab information office in New York. He lectured, wrote, and became an activist on behalf of the Palestinians as partition was debated at the UN. Told by his daughter, the story of Khalils life sheds light on the history of Palestine of that period and of the Quakers in Palestine. His journal, diaries, articles, photographs, and her mothers letters to family in the US have formed the foundation for this story.

Winner of the 2017 APA William James Book Award The concept of passion is one we regularly use to describe our interests, and yet there is no broad theory that can explain the development and consequences of passion for activities across people's lives. In The Psychology of Passion, Robert J. Vallerand presents the first such theory, providing a complete presentation of the Dualistic Model of Passion and the empirical evidence that supports it. Vallerand conceives of two types of passion: harmonious passion, which remains under the person's control, and obsessive passion, which controls the person. While the first typically leads to adaptive behaviors, the obsessive form of passion leads to less adaptive and, at times, maladaptive behaviors. Vallerand highlights the effects of these two types of passion on a number of psychological phenomena, such as cognition, emotions, performance, relationships, aggression, and violence. He also discusses the development of passion and reviews a range of literature on passion for activities.

Forty-five days. Forty-five challenges. On Fire and Full of Passion is a forty-five day devotional book that is designed to help inspire people to become more passionate and courageous Christians who will boldly go forth and share the Gospel of Christ with the people of this world. It is meant to get peoples faith in God past the point of speaking mere words and to the point of taking action. Its purpose is to help people become completely in love with God and surrender everything they have to him. Each daily devotional has an application for the day as well as a unique challenge, verse, passage, and takeawayall specifically designed to help people become more accountable to one another and more intimate with God; to help them become on fire and full of passion.

Philosophy as a Way of Life This unique collection of essays on the late Pierre Hadot’s revolutionary methodological approach to studying and practicing philosophy explores Hadot’s primary conviction that philosophy itself goes beyond solving puzzles and analyzing abstract arguments. Hadot believed that philosophy is a key part of humanity’s search for happiness, that it can transform our perception of the world, and thus can alter our very mode of being. His argument that the goal of philosophy is to shift our focus away from our habitual obsession with individuality, and to embrace universality and objectivity, has resonated with thinkers across the Academy – and outside it. Offering genuinely interdisciplinary analysis of Hadot’s work and philosophical practice, this volume includes papers written from a gamut of philosophical, historical, and geographical perspectives. Articles address issues in the history of philosophy from Pythagoras to Descartes, by way of Islamic thought, thus corresponding to Hadot’s view of the importance of philologically based analysis of ancient texts and historical contexts. Others study the presence of ideas related to, or influenced by, Hadot in contemporary thought, from Wittgenstein to Leonard Nelson, analytic philosophy, and French postmodernism. The result is a wide-ranging publication pointing to an additional “third way” alongside the traditional approaches of Continental and analytic philosophy, one that expands our horizons with secular spiritual exercises designed to enable us to be in a fuller, more authentic way.

A Passionate Schooling provides a clear, scholarly overview of the key ideas behind Steiner Waldorf education. It examines how Rudolf Steiner developed his ideas in the context of his life and the culture in which he lived. A Passionate Schooling focuses on Steiner's insights as they relate to: - the nature of the human being; - freedom and the ideals of education and social renewal; - new perspectives on child development; - the evolution of consciousness, - and the transformation of the self. It also explores the concepts of goodness, beauty and truth as ideals in education, as well as the adaptability of the Steiner Curriculum. It re-interprets Steiner's ideas in the context of post-modernist thought and contemporary challenges and practices. A Passionate Schooling is a revealing text for students of education, teachers and parents. More at www.passionateschooling.com