Family therapist and radio host Dr. Laura Schlessinger, known for her frank talk and no-nonsense advice, has noticed a trend among her listeners -- many people don't realize that their childhood history has impacted their adult thought and behavioral patterns in unfortunate ways. "While many people may be quite aware of their early life challenges," she explains, "they still may be seriously unaware of how their choices in people, environments, decisions, behaviors, and attitudes are connected to those experiences, and how those choices are the major factor in their current predicaments and unhappiness." Now, in Bad Childhood -- Good Life: How to Blossom and Thrive in Spite of an Unhappy Childhood, Dr. Laura outlines the steps on the path from Bad Childhood to Good Life while warning of some potential pitfalls along the way. With empathy and understanding, she reminds adults that they are in control now, unlike in childhood, and may use their power to make positive choices for themselves.

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Every year, tens of millions of Americans get cheated -- by crooked car salesmen, dishonest repairmen, identity thieves, and countless other con artists. Then there are the myriad legal-but-sneaky ways that banks, phone companies, travel agencies and mortgage lenders bilk you out of a dollar here, a thousand dollars there. But now, Scam-Proof Your Life: 377 Smart Ways to Protect You & Your Family from Ripoffs, Bogus Deals & Other Consumer Headaches, safely steers you through the tough terrain of a cheat-laden landscape. Your guides for this journey? None other than nearly 100 experts in the best position to know -- including former crooks and con artists who once pulled these scams.

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In a culture inundated with liberal self-obsession and victimhood posturing, Dr. Laura Schlessinger is a breath of fresh air. In her latest blockbuster, Stop Whining, Start Living, she says it’s time to grow up! Dr. Laura here strikes a mortal blow to the fashionable mindset that the Left tirelessly inculcates, as they teach people to evade all responsibility for their lives by claiming victim status. She uses real-life situations from her renowned nationally-syndicated radio show to provide genuine solutions to common problems that affect our relationships and our jobs.

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Modern education has severed its vital connection to the past. Today's educators reject the importance of preparing our next generation to enter the great classical conversations of history because they no longer believe there is a core body of knowledge common to man. Result? Personal opinion has trumped universal truth, expediency has molested goodness, and edginess has shoved aside beauty. Solution? A return to the historically successful model of rigorous, classical education. Now, in The Core: Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education, Leigh A. Bortins shows parents how to apply the foundations of classical learning either in home schooling or as a supplement to classroom-oriented education.

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When John Henry Newman delivered these lectures 150 years ago, it was the heart of the Victorian era. Times have changed, and Cardinal Newman's insights on the purposes and advantages of a university education are needed even more today. First spoken when Newman assumed the position of first rector of the newly founded Catholic University in Ireland, these messages form an orderly, logical treatment of what a true education entails. Some of the topics: read more

Public schools are such a fixture in American life that few parents think -- and even fewer politicians dare -- to question whether the State should be sponsoring education in the first place. Perhaps more of them would, if they understood just when, where and why the whole idea of government-sponsored education came about. In The Myth of the Common School, Boston University professor Charles L. Glenn traces the history of the idea that the State should sponsor popular education in order to mold common loyalties and values among its citizens -- and shows how this idea has led inevitably to conflict with parents and groups who do not accept the values and beliefs inculcated by the State and its educators. Some highlights:

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The Trivium is a rigorous and utterly delightful presentation of the three areas that form the basis for all learning: logic, grammar, and rhetoric. Sister Miriam Joseph Rauh, a professor of English at St. Mary's College for thirty years, helps you see the unity and harmony of these three areas as she gives you solid and easily-grasped explanations of even their most abstruse elements: not just general grammar, but also propositions, syllogisms, enthymemes, fallacies, poetics, figurative language, and metrical discourse! Attractively laid out to maximize clarity, this book is also packed with lively examples, exercises, and illustrations drawn from the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Plato, and others. The examples are so rich that they're a literary education in themselves. read more

The literature on dying is filled with talk of anger and forgiveness, peace and acceptance -- but nowhere has anyone written about the spirit of happiness and holiness that John Fanestil sometimes witnessed in his work as a pastor. Then one day, in a seminary library, Fanestil chanced upon some stories of "happy deaths" from the 18th and 19th centuries. He was particularly struck with an account, based on a private journal, of a young woman identified as "Mrs. Hunter" who died in London from an unidentified illness at age 26. "That day in the library, I found in the language of a bygone generation the same spirit I had witnessed" in the dying people to whom he had ministered. Now, in Mrs. Hunter's Happy Death: Lessons on Living from People Preparing to Die, Pastor Fanestil revives this lost wisdom about "happy dying". read more

Good manners are about much more than selecting the proper fork and keeping one's elbows off the table. They are, writes Karen Santorum, "an outward expression of inner virtue" -- the everyday habits of conduct and speech by which we express our fundamental respect for others, whether parents, friends, colleagues, or strangers. And, like the virtues themselves, good manners are best learned through constant practice and examples. That's why Mrs. Santorum created Everyday Graces: A Child's Book of Good Manners -- a wonderfully rich and instructive anthology of stories, poems and literary excerpts that illustrate the connection between good manners and good character.

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Born a congenital amputee -- missing his limbs below the elbows and knees -- 19-year-old college student Kyle Maynard has excelled at nearly everything he has attempted in life: from playing middle school football, to becoming a high school wrestling champion, to breaking world records in weightlifting. Now, in No Excuses: The Inspiring True Story of a Congenital Amputee Who Became a Champion in Wrestling and in Life, he tells how a devoted family, a strong religious faith, and a "No Excuses" attitude toward his handicaps helped him accomplish so much so early in his young life.

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All across America, young warriors for liberty are springing up, unwilling to fall into lockstep with the liberal ideology pervading campuses throughout our land. With “fire in their bellies and quills in their hands,” these passionate, truth-seeking students are forming independent campus publications that have become the most important voice of our times -- the conservative counterculture taking on the left-wing orthodoxy in the battle of ideas. They are the Sam Adams and Patrick Henrys of our era, as student Morgan N. Knull of the Wabash Commentary points out in one of the book’s many inspiring essays: “In the years before the Liberty Bell sounded a call to arms, patriots flooded newspapers and town squares with pleas for independence, sparking debate and influencing public opinion. They planted the philosophical roots for the United States...Independent papers serve as the conscience of schools, the guardian of traditions, and the voice of reason amidst the rot of higher education.” read more

That's because you get your advice from the winners. How? That's easy: by reading The Book of Investing Wisdom. There, in 514 fat pages, you sit at the feet of the great stock pickers and legends of Wall Street, past and present, stars such as Warren Buffett ... B. C. Forbes ... Charles Dow ... Benjamin Graham ... George Soros ... Peter Lynch ... Donald Trump ... John Moody ... John Bogle ... Sir John Templeton ... Otto Kahn ... Charles Merrill ... J. Paul Getty ... and 33 other greats. How did they achieve financial success? How did they survive booms -- and busts? Here are the answers in their own words -- advice you'll use again and again on your own climb up the investment ladder. read more

Over the past 200 years, modern education has been gradually directed away from that which forms the "complete man," and toward that which primarily promotes man's material well-being – a.k.a. "the useful." This is in stark contrast with what has been called the Great Tradition, which, ever since antiquity, has defined education first and foremost as the hard work of rightly ordering the human soul, helping it to love what it ought to love, and helping it to know itself and its maker. The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on What It Means to be an Educated Human Being is designed to help parents, students, and teachers reconnect with this noble legacy, to articulate a coherent defense of the liberal arts tradition, and to do battle with the modern utilitarians and vocationalists who dominate educational theory and practice. read more

Who's Looking Out for You? is the latest dose of common sense and plain speaking from Bill O'Reilly, the vigorous, straight-shooting host of Fox's wildly popular O'Reilly Factor. O'Reilly presents an inspiring defense of the traditional family and scathing critiques of today's materialistic consumer culture, the perils of big government, the damage that the media establishment is doing to our nation's children, and much more.

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Alabama may be one of the country's poorest states, but one of its major universities is "rich" in no-nonsense academics (and very affordable). Do you know which one? ... Do you know which colleges are the most hospitable - or hostile -- to conservatives and Christians? Or which university has been named "the number one party school in the nation"? (Don't expect the school to tell you.) Instead, find the answers in Choosing the Right College 2008-9: The Whole Truth About America’s Top Schools -- the only comprehensive guide that addresses the concerns of conservative students and their parents. read more

Dr. Laura Schlessinger said it best. Faced with a hostile crowd of day care supporters, she asked them: "OK, if you could come back as an infant, stand up if you would rather be raised by a day care worker, a nanny or a babysitter [rather than your own mother]. Stand up now." No one stood up. "Then why," she asked, "are you going to do this to your children?"

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Better teaching. Better curriculums. Better organization. And, of course, better funding. All these solutions and more have been offered as ways to "fix" our public schools. Yet in these continuing exhortations, little attention is paid to the responsibilities of the students themselves. Now, in Doomed to Fail: The Built-in Defects of American Education, Paul Zoch argues that what America most needs to improve our schools is not necessarily better teachers but a wholesale shift in the way we think about who or what creates academic success. In fact, he maintains, the tendency to look to teachers for students' achievement is the cause of low achievement.

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As one of America's most popular talk-radio hosts, Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s daily on-air teaching (and scolding) has led millions of her mostly female listeners to realize that, no, they can't have it all -- that "quality time" with their children isn't better than quantity time, and a nanny or a day-care provider can't replace a mother's love. Now, in In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms, Dr. Laura speaks directly to those women who have made (or are thinking of making) the courageous -- and usually costly -- decision to be at home with their children 24/7.

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Mental anxiety and moral confusion may seem to be the unique hallmarks of our time ... but they're not. Back in 1953, James A. Magner saw the trouble coming, and he exposed it in Mental Health in a Mad World, a handbook that offers sane, down-to-earth, Christian solutions to the problems that afflict our society -- and perhaps our own families: read more

In Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality, Raymond Arroyo - EWTN news anchor and author of the bestselling biography of Mother Angelica -- has assembled an inspiring collection of her powerful insights, comic musings, and no-nonsense guidance for everyday living.

Culled from never-before-seen interviews, private conversations, and recorded broadcasts not heard in over thirty years, these selections capture Mother Angelica's spunky spirit, irrepressible humor and profound wisdom at their zenith. read more