苏珊•斯宾塞•温德尔曾是美国佛罗里达州的著名记者。但2011 年夏天，45岁的她被诊断出患了肌萎缩症（ALS）。绝症一点点吞噬她的生活能力，瘫痪她的一切，甚至连说话也越来越不清楚。在生命尽头，她选择与自己最亲爱的人一起旅行，并用全身唯一能动的右手拇指，在iPhone上一字一句敲下了她生命中最美好的一年：
与相识34年的挚友南希踏上育空极光之旅；
与丈夫约翰在结婚20周年纪念日回到婚姻生活的起点布达佩斯；
去塞浦路斯寻找亲生母亲；
陪9岁的儿子韦斯利去海湾，圆他亲吻海豚的梦想；
与14岁的女儿前往纽约挑选婚纱——为了未来她没机会参加的婚礼……
这是一场最美丽的道别。在所余有限的生命里，苏珊勇敢地为所爱之人留下最美好的回忆，并用诙谐幽默的笔调记录生活、享受生活。她的爱丰富了这个世界，也让我们更懂得珍惜现在所拥有的一切。
In June 2011, Susan Spencer-Wendel learned she had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)—Lou Gehrig’s disease—an irreversible condition that systematically destroys the nerves that power the muscles. She was forty-four years old, with a devoted husband and three young children, and she had only one year of health remaining.
Susan decided to live that year with joy.
She quit her job as a journalist and spent time with her family. She built an outdoor meeting space for friends in her backyard. And she took seven trips with the seven most important people in her life. As her health declined, Susan journeyed to the Yukon, Hungary, the Bahamas, and Cyprus. She took her sons to swim with dolphins, and her teenage daughter, Marina, to Kleinfeld’s bridal shop in New York City to see her for the first and last time in a wedding dress.
She also wrote this book. No longer able to walk or even to lift her arms, she tapped it out letter by letter on her iPhone using only her right thumb, the last finger still working.
However, Until I Say Good-Bye is not angry or bitter. It is sad in parts—how could it not be?—but it is filled with Susan’s optimism, joie de vivre, and sense of humor. It is a book about life, not death. One that, like Susan, will make everyone smile.
From the Burger King parking lot where she cried after her diagnosis to a snowy hot spring near the Arctic Circle, from a hilarious family Christmas disaster to the decrepit monastery in eastern Cyprus where she rediscovered her heritage, Until I Say Good-Bye is not only Susan Spencer-Wendel’s unforgettable gift to her loved ones—a heartfelt record of their final experiences together—but an offering to all of us: a reminder that “every day is better when it is lived with joy.”
本书是美国著名黑人投资专家克里斯·加德纳生平的真实写照，他用生命诠释了责任和奋斗以及如何去实现梦想，永不放弃梦想，永远奋力前行。书名中“Happyness”的拼写错误其实别具匠心，它暗指了书中一个非常重要的场景，读者可亲自揭开谜底。
At the age of twenty, Milwaukee native Chris Gardner, just out of the Navy, arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. Considered a prodigy in scientific research, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm than Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him as part of the city’s working homeless and with a toddler son. Motivated by the promise he made to himself as a fatherless child to never abandon his own children, the two spent almost a year moving among shelters, “HO-tels,” soup lines, and even sleeping in the public restroom of a subway station.
Never giving in to despair, Gardner made an astonishing transformation from being part of the city’s invisible poor to being a powerful player in its financial district.
More than a memoir of Gardner’s financial success, this is the story of a man who breaks his own family’s cycle of men abandoning their children. Mythic, triumphant, and unstintingly honest, The Pursuit of Happyness conjures heroes like Horatio Alger and Antwone Fisher, and appeals to the very essence of the American Dream.
法齐娅•库菲，阿富汗唯一一位女性国会议长，自童年开始便亲眼目睹阿富汗人民的苦难与悲惨，立誓投身政治，面对质疑，诽谤，不公正的政治环境，一次次的暗杀与迫害，她始终坚定地与所有反对力量抗争，也幸运地躲过了一次次死亡的威胁。
她有一个 “我永远不会站在你和你的祖国之间”的丈夫和一段凄美至极的爱情。她代表阿富汗最贫穷地区的利益，代表正义的力量，她每一次走出家门都是充满危险的未知旅程，都无法保证自己能否平安返回，于是她只能在每次出门前给最亲爱的两个女儿留下一封信：如果她不在了，女儿们要怎样面对生活。请不要悲伤，你们要从中汲取，犹存的力量。
尽管生命充满苦痛与辛酸，但这本书里的每一段悲痛的情节都能让人见到希望的阳光。信仰超越了死亡，岁月沉淀了从容，绽放出最夺目的光彩。
In this courageous memoir, Fawzia Koofi, Afghanistan’s most popular female politician, gives us her first-hand account of Afghan history through the rule of the Mujahedeen and Taliban, her experiences of the Afghanistan War, and the effects of these events on the lives of women in Afghanistan. In writing Letters to My Daughters, Fawziahas created a fresh take on Afghan society and Islam, and a gripping account of a life lived under the most harrowing of circumstances.
Fawziais the nineteenth child of twenty-three in a family with seven wives. Her father was an incorruptible politician strongly attached to Afghan tradition. When he was murdered by the Mujahedeen, Fawziais illiterate mother escaped with her children and decided to send the ten-year-old Fawziato school. As the civil war raged, Fawziadodged bullets and snipers to attend class, determined to be the first person in her family to receive an education.
Fawziawent on to marry a man she loved, and they had two cherished daughters, Shohra and Shaharzad. Sadly, the arrival of the Taliban spelled an end to Fawzia’s freedom. Outraged and deeply saddened by the injustice she saw around her, and by the tainting of her Islamic faith, she discovered politics for herself, following in her father’s footsteps. Tragically, this choice has lead to security threats to her life by Islamic extremists. Thus, Letters to My Daughtersis not only a record of her life, but also acts as a literal letter through which Fawzia can pass on her wisdom about justice and dignity to her daughters, not knowing for how long she will survive such attacks.
