Bøger udgivet af Mountain Muse Publishing Company

I should make this clear from the start. None of this is easy. The first chapter of this work starts out saying exactly that: This will not be easy. I tell some hard truths. Don't be misled by the mirthful lilt of my title. Uncle Bob here will do his best to help you be happy, but none of this means diddly-squat if you can't face harsher aspects of our everyday journey. Happy and easy-I don't think so. Not in the world I tell. Matters profound, intimate; cosmic and common; cruel and blissful; deeply mundane and sweetly eternal... are seldom honestly confronted without a great deal of effort. Happiness is an art, and art is never easy. But, oh... if you ever want to take a joyful breath of the life you are living-forget the mortgage, the fools who run things, the pain in your get-along-realize by proof of the people who love you, the taste of a good meal, the bird-sound, wind-stirred, sky-vast wonder of a world just beyond the clasp of drudgery: nobody owns your soul. Nobody!

Greg Watson was just a regular enough school teacher fellow when, in order to quit taking debilitating pills to control his high blood pressure, he began to practice Hush Meditation. It worked. His numbers dropped to normal and his love life rose back to normal. All was well until, during meditation, a strange little man in a monk's cowl appeared and directed him to shoot a crossbow arrow into a tiny sector of his own brain. (Hence, the title, Albatross.) "What have I done?" Greg asked. "Oh, nothing much. You've only disabled your mind's ability to create bullshit." The consequence of this communicative impairment was catastrophic. Absolute honesty loses Greg his wife, his friends, and his job. Though this may seem a bit on the serious side, in fact, it is an uplifting and imaginative tale of farce, surrealism, and heartfelt truth written with a storyteller's craft and a poet's touch.

This book tells, with the heartfelt power of a father's poetic prose, the story of the first sixteen years of the life of his daughter Kristin, an amazing human being who at birth was described as being a vegetable. It took Robert Nichols over ten years to write this little book telling the distress and delight of his years as the father of a child with Down syndrome. But, this is not a book about a chromosomal abnormality, or even about disability. It is the story, wrenched from the very souls of Robert, his wife Carol, and their daughter Kristin, of a family confronting difficulty with love, humor, and compassion.This book tells a difficult, sometimes sad story of the unfairness, the danger, and the cruelty of the world Kristin has known and her parents have battled. But, mainly, it is the story of a beautiful human being who, throughout her life, has been a source of joy, inspiration, and a lot of good laughs to any who have been fortunate enough to know her. The Kristin Book: Update 2013, with unflinching honesty and passionate truth, will give the reader artful cause to weep, to laugh, and to celebrate the wonderful potential that is implicit to the human spirit. In this update of The Kristin Book, the original 1987 text is included along with an update of the ensuing twenty-five years since publication with sections written by Robert, Carol, and Kristin Nichols.Thank you for caring.