AN EDGAR AWARDS 2020 WINNER AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER In this powerful true crime memoir, an award-winning identity theft expert tells the shocking story of the duplicity and betrayal that inspired her career and nearly destroyed her family. Axton Betz-Hamilton grew up in small-town Indiana in the early '90s. When she was 11 years old, her parents both had their identities stolen. Their credit ratings were ruined, and they were constantly fighting over money. This was before the age of the Internet, when identity theft became more commonplace, so authorities and banks were clueless and reluctant to help Axton's parents. Axton's family changed all of their personal information and moved to different addresses, but the identity thief followed them wherever they went. Convinced that the thief had to be someone they knew, Axton and her parents completely cut off the outside world, isolating themselves from friends and family. Axton learned not to let anyone into the house without explicit permission, and once went as far as chasing a plumber off their property with a knife. As a result, Axton spent her formative years crippled by anxiety, quarantined behind the closed curtains in her childhood home. She began starving herself at a young age in an effort to blend in--her appearance could be nothing short of perfect or she would be scolded by her mother, who had become paranoid and consumed by how others perceived the family. Years later, her parents' marriage still shaken from the theft, Axton discovered that she, too, had fallen prey to the identity thief, but by the time she realized, she was already thousands of dollars in debt and her credit was ruined. The Less People Know About Us is Axton's attempt to untangle an intricate web of lies, and to understand why and how a loved one could have inflicted such pain. Axton will present a candid, shocking, and redemptive story and reveal her courageous effort to grapple with someone close that broke the unwritten rules of love, protection, and family.

This book explores the steady decline in the status of the individual in recent years and addresses common misunderstandings about the concept of individuality. Drawing from psychology, neuroscience, technology, economics, philosophy, politics, and law, White explains how and why the individual has been devalued in the eyes of scholars, government leaders, and the public. He notes that developments in science have led to doubts about our cognitive competence, while assumptions made in the humanities have led to questions about our moral competence. In this book, White goes on to argue that both of these views are mistaken and that they stem from overly simplistic ideas about how individuals make choices, however imperfectly, in their interests, which are multifaceted and complex. In response, he proposes a new way to look at individuals that preserves their essential autonomy while emphasizing their responsibility to others, inspired by the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant and the legal and political philosophy reflected in the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution. This book explains how individuality combines both rights and responsibilities, reconciles the popular yet false dichotomy between individual and society, and provides the basis for a humane and respectful civil society and government. This book is part of White's trilogy on the individual and society, which includes The Manipulation of Choice and The Illusion of Well-Being.

The old way of “being church” is being replaced by something new and beautiful for those with the eyes, ears, heart, and soul to experience it. Prolific author Greg Garrett reminds Episcopalians of the many gifts that our tradition can offer a doubting and hurting world. He reveals a church that values intellect, beauty, diversity, and community, and promotes thoughtful engagement with questions of faith, ethics, and community. This church espouses a generous orthodoxy, welcoming left and right, mystic and doubter. It values education, social justice, and engagement with literature and culture. And in opposition to the radical individualism espoused by most of American Protestantism, it offers the unique gift of a tradition shaped by English culture that believes the individual is a part of her or his community—not in opposition to it.

The current popularity of contemplative prayer is not accidental. A twenty-first-century understanding of the human condition has made us suspicious of words and the understanding we craft out of words. Theology generally offers us words that purport to give us a more precise and certain understanding of God, but the mystic has always known that our relationship to God transcends words and the kind of understanding that words produce. The theology of the mystic has always been about understanding our communion with the mystery that is God in order to fall evermore deeply in love with the Divine. That is the ultimate purpose of contemplative prayer, and the purpose of this book is to offer a philosophy and theology of contemplative prayer in the twenty-first century.

Compelling sermons by one of the nineteenth century's finest preachers Best known today as the author of the Christmas carol "O Little Town of Bethlehem, " Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) has been called the greatest American preacher of the nineteenth century. Yet his magnificent sermons, which brought standing-room-only crowds to Trinity Church in Boston, have long been out of print and hard to find. But, thanks to Ellen Wilbur, the illuminating messages delivered by Brooks are once again available in this collection of twelve of his best sermons, allowing modern readers to be touched by the man whom Wilbur describes as "a poet of a speaker, " Upon first immersing herself in his long lost sermons, she felt deeply that his "loftiness of mind and heart shone through his words in such a way that made it easy to imagine rooms of hushed, uplifted people pinned on him, as much astonished by the man as by his teachings." The Consolations of God will appeal to a wide range of readers wanting to deepen their spiritual lives.

A ROUGH TRADE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 A GUARDIAN MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 The Cure are arguably the biggest alternative rock band in the world. Between 1985 and 2000 every album they released went to at least Gold in the UK, the US or both. In America they have earned four Platinum albums, and they are estimated to have sold 30 million albums worldwide. Their iconic status as elder statesmen of Alternative Rock remains undiminished - if anything, their tireless touring has ensured that it has grown with every passing year - and lead singer Robert Smith is an endlessly fascinating figure to successive generations of fans. The Cure's influence reverberates through genres including Emo, Goth, Industrial and Indie Rock. The book is an encyclopaedic A-Z of The Cure examining and riffing on miscellaneous trivia, biographies of the band members past and present, summaries of each album and selected songs, details of the band's various tours and films, and essays on broader topics such as their image, their politics and their influences. Playful, eccentric and irreverent - true to the spirit of the band itself - CUREPEDIA is a comprehensive biography of one of the biggest alternative rock bands in the world. The hardback edition features interior pages printed in red and black ink, a ribbon marker, and bespoke C-U-R-E letter endpapers specially designed by Andy Vella - celebrated artist and collaborator (as part of Parched Art) with The Cure on their album artwork for four decades.

A handbook for the study of strategic communication in the fields of politics, diplomacy and civill society. Contains theory, practice and case studies.

Can you smuggle some thirty-five million dollars worth of gold openly and so audaciously that no one can catch you when you carry it from Houston to Cochin on the high seas using a sailboat? Dr. Mohan Reddy, an American metallurgist, does it, and he does it successfully. The gold bars were accidentally found by him in a jungle in Texas. The original thief of the gold comes to know about his loss and keeps an eagle’s eye on Mohan all the time. What about Mohan’s own challenges? The movement of gold bars within the US is the first one. The next one is converting the shape of gold amenable for transportation, a metallurgical nightmare. What about the treacherous Atlantic Ocean? What about the pirates of the Arabian Sea? What about the moles placed by the original thief of the gold on his sailboat? What about converting the gold into legal money? Most importantly, how would he handle the whole perilous caper all alone and without any latitude for error or failure?

The planet Hegira is the universe's melting pot. Hundreds of tribes in dozens of cities intermingle in the vast uncharted territory. The only thing holding the people together are the massive Obelisks, the chronicles of the all the truths and falsehoods each tribe has brought to Hegira. Young Bar-Woten is in search of knowledge and he knows the key to the truth about his homeland is contained in the writings of the Obelisks. With his fellow companions, Bar-Woten must travel through Hegira's exotic cities to discover the lies within the words of thousands.

Feeling invincible, Overlord Aart Xerxes has arrived at the Bion with an insatiable will for power. The ruthless overlord plans to use the newly awakened Omorfians to help him conquer his rival kingdom, Islaag. But members of his entourage, including his wife’s brother Memphis, have formed a secret alliance against him. Will their plans to stop him work? Meanwhile, in the wake of the overlord’s arrival, fear and exhaustion from all the pain and loss overwhelm Leios and Emely as they scramble to join their comrades in Ignosi. There, the Omorfians must plan their next move: Will they return to the Sapien territory and fight or put their faith in their human allies, friends like Ferdi and the people of Islaag, to save them? Knowing Overlord Aart’s plans and not wanting any more bloodshed, Islaag’s overlord and empress hope Ambroos—Aart’s brother and the true overlord of Oever—will manage to stop the war before it starts. Wanting nothing more than a peaceful, simple life, Ambroos had been avoiding his duties, but knowing how evil his brother has become, he is willing to overthrow him. But will Ambroos be too late? The Battle of Islaag is the thrilling and dramatic conclusion to the enthralling Omorfia Trilogy.