Books about Unexpected from Amazon.com

In her funny and wistful new book, Reeve Lindbergh contemplates entering a new stage in life, turning sixty, the period her mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, once described as "the youth of old age." It is a time of life, she writes, that produces some unexpected surprises. Age brings loss, but also love; disaster, but also delight. The second-graders Reeve taught many years ago are now middle-aged; her own children grow, marry, have children themselves. "Time flies," she observes, "but if I am willing to fly with it, then I can be airborne, too." A milestone birthday is also an opportunity to take stock of oneself, although such self-reflection may lead to nothing more than the realization, as Reeve puts it, "that I just seem to continue being me, the same person I was at twelve and at fifty." At sixty, as she observes, "all I really can do with the rest of my life is to...feel all of it, every bit of it, as much as I can for as long as I can."

Age is only one of many subjects that Reeve writes about with perception and insight. In northern Vermont, nature is an integral part of daily life, especially on a farm. Whether it is the arrival and departure of certain birds in spring and fall, wandering turtles, or the springtime ritual of lambing, the natural world is a constant revelation.

With a wry sense of humor, Reeve contemplates the infirmities of the aging body, as well as the many new drugs that treat these maladies. Briefly considering the risks of drug dependency, she writes that "the least we [the "Sixties Generation"] can do for ourselves is live up to our mythology, and take lots of drugs." Legal drugs, that is -- although what sustains us as we grow older is not drugs but an appreciation for life, augmented by compassion, a sense of humor, and common sense.

And of course there is family -- especially with the Lindberghs. Reeve writes about discovering, thirty years after her father's death and two and a half years after her mother's, that her father had three secret families in Europe. She travels to meet them, learning to expand her self-understanding: "daughter of," "mother of," "sister of" -- sister of many more siblings than she'd known, in a family more complicated than even she had imagined.

Forward from Here is a brave book, a reflective book, a funny book -- a book that will charm and fascinate anyone on the journey from middle age to the uncertain future that lies ahead..
Price: $14.53 [Notify me when price goes down.]

If God loves me, why does life hurt so much?

“A new way to live is available to us,” writes widely respected author and counselor Larry Crabb, “a way that leads to a joy-filled encounter with Christ, to a life-arousing community with others, and to a powerful transformation of our interior worlds that makes us more like Jesus.”
You’ll see how God moves you from shattered dreams to better dreams to the highest dream– and the joy that comes from dreaming it.

This is a book that will...
draw you to your closest Friend,
help you discover your deepest
spiritual desires,
point you to your greatest hope,
help you face your deepest pain,
and invite you to your highest joy.

Join Larry Crabb on a life-changing adventure of encountering God in the midst of life’s most difficult times. And learn to live beyond your Shattered Dreams.


From the Hardcover edition..
Price: $3.84 [Notify me when price goes down.]

During the last 40 years, our society's views on how families are created and how they operate has undergone a tremendous shift. In The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, authors Judith Wallerstein, Julia Lewis, and Sandra Blakeslee have assembled a variety of stories from people of different ages and life stages. Some are children of divorce, some are from families that stayed unhappily intact, but all of them offer valuable information important to all of us as parents, children, and members of society at large. Separate chapters focus on the different roles children take on in the event of a divorce or unhappy marriage, ranging from positive role model to deeply troubled adolescent. In many cases, the people interviewed continue to define themselves as children of divorce up to 30 years after the occurrence; this is described by one subject as "sort of a permanent identity, like being adopted or something."

Both encouraging and thought-provoking, the final chapter questions how we maintain the freedom made possible by divorce while, at the same time, minimizing the damage. The authors' response to this question begins with pragmatic suggestions about strengthening marriage--not bland "family values" rhetoric but practical how-to ideas combined with national policy initiatives that have been making the rounds for years. With fascinating stories and statistics, Wasserstein, Lewis, and Blakeslee have illuminated the improvements within reach while our society experiences these massive changes in it's most fundamental relationships. --Jill Lightner.
Price: $5.94 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Since the first edition of Managing the Unexpected was published in 2001, the unexpected has become a growing part of our everyday lives. The unexpected is often dramatic, as with hurricanes or terrorist attacks. But the unexpected can also come in more subtle forms, such as a small organizational lapse that leads to a major blunder, or an unexamined assumption that costs lives in a crisis. Why are some organizations better able than others to maintain function and structure in the face of unanticipated change?

Authors Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe answer this question by pointing to high reliability organizations (HROs), such as emergency rooms in hospitals, flight operations of aircraft carriers, and firefighting units, as models to follow. These organizations have developed ways of acting and styles of learning that enable them to manage the unexpected better than other organizations. Thoroughly revised and updated, the second edition of the groundbreaking book Managing the Unexpected uses HROs as a template for any institution that wants to better organize for high reliability..
Price: $14.66 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In this lavishly illustrated book, Hollywood's hottest new interior designer shows readers how mixing and matching designs from different eras and adding an element of the unexpected can redefine any room–residential or commercial.

With a painter's eye for colour, unwavering esteem for the historic, and a finely tuned sense of detail, Kelly Wearstler, one of Hollywood's most talked about young interior designers, has led her Los Angeles–based interior design firm, kwid (Kelly Wearstler Interior Design), to national prominence with an array of noted residential and commercial projects. Now, she shares her famous design philosophies and secrets, and inspires readers to create unexpected style in their own homes. Through full–colour photographs and sketches and informative text, Kelly explains the elements of unexpected style: inspiration, shapes and forms, graphics, texture and colour, masculine vs. feminine, and unusual details. Kelly takes readers through the creative process and shows how a Franco–Chinese piece of vintage wallpaper led her to a shopping spree in Paris and inspired the layered, classic look of the hotel Maison 140 in Beverly Hills. She explains the need for "icebreakers" in a room and how unexpected designs and details can lighten a room's load.

This is the perfect book for anyone looking for new and creative ways to decorate their homes. Whether it's shopping for a bedside table, putting reflective paint on the underside of a dining room table, or finishing a ceiling with high–gloss paint, she inspires readers to add an element of the unexpected to their homes. Others will enjoy living vicariously through Kelly's shopping sprees throughout the US, Asia, and Europe and appreciate discovering how each item found is a starting off point for a fresh and fun room design.

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Price: $12.40 [Notify me when price goes down.]

What happens when a young woman falls for two men--one black, one white, both determined in their pursuit for her affections?....Unexpected Interruptions follows the journey of Victoria Small, a smart, savvy sister who's fresh off a year-long, self-imposed hiatus--from men! Now that she's ready to start dating again, she gets more than she bargained for when Ted Thornton and Parker Brightwood enter her life. Ted, a powerful blue-eyed CEO, is drawn to Victoria, igniting a friendship that both delights and shocks her out of her comfort zone. Then she meets Parker, a talented surgeon who showers her with tenderness, helping to mend her once-broken heart. In her struggle to rationalize her growing feelings for the white man who loves her, and forge ahead in her relationship with the ebony prince who fulfills her, she resurrects a painful secret she thought she'd buried long ago, and finds herself doing things she never thought she'd do. Along the way she's joined by a colorful cast of friends and foes as she tests the boundaries of love, race, class and where she fits in..
Price: $9.17 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This straightforward and inspiring book takes readers into schools where educators believe and prove that all children, even those considered hard-to-teach, can learn to high standards. Their teachers and principals refuse to write them off and instead show how thoughtful instruction, high expectations, stubborn commitment, and careful consideration of each child s needs can result in remarkable improvements in student achievement..
Price: $24.26 [Notify me when price goes down.]