Most Popular Books by Paul Collins

Annotation Strength Training for Women has been developed as a training guide as more women begin to understand the health benefits of this activity.

A view into the tumultuous and creative life of Edgar Allan Poe.

5 Stars * * * * * "...characters leap off the pages. I cared about them...their triumphs and sorrows."—Lucinda E. Clarke, award winning, best-selling author 5 Stars * * * * * "Collins demonstrates remarkable skill in bringing historical America to vivid life through meticulous attention to detail and rich, evocative prose." —K.C. Finn, Amazon and USA Today best-selling author 4 Stars * * * * "If we only knew how much our grandchildren would treasure such a thing, we would all do this." —Susie Helme, The Genizah Codex This gripping fact-based fictional account, composed of three personal journals written as if by Collins'' ancestors nearly two hundred years ago, contains their intimate, emotional stories, firsthand experiences, and traditions of old-world craftsmanship in a world being overtaken by technology. Based on the legacies of two Boston Irish and Italian families, it is a perfect story for fans of historical Irish fiction by authors like Jean Grainger, Andrew Wareham, and Daisy O''Shea, fans of historical Italian fiction by Daniela Sacerdoti and Kate Quinn, and fans of historical biographical fiction and family sagas by writers like Mark Sullivan and Marie Benedict. Forgotten by Time, Rediscovered by Fate "A century after her birth, Jessie (Ambrosini) Collins is laid to rest beside her husband, Joseph Cornelius Collins, in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Milford, Massachusetts. Weeks later, while settling her estate, her children and grandchildren discover an old hope chest filled with the artifacts and memories of her life. Among the curiosities and treasures is a tied bundle containing three handwritten journals, previously unknown to the family. In time, they would come to realize that what they held in their hands was the family legacy—pictures of life passed down by those who lived before—of how it was with them in their time." The Odyssey of Cornelius Collins It is 1845 the first year of the Great Famine in Ireland when fourteen-year-old Cornelius Collins begins a harrowing seven-year struggle for survival. At twenty, he escapes to Liverpool, England, securing a one-way third-class passage aboard a "coffin ship" bound for America. Against all odds, he survives the forty-one-day Atlantic crossing on the packet ship Clara Wheeler, landing in Boston, Massachusetts. There, he is processed and released into the streets alone to face the "land sharks" eager to take what little he possesses, including his life. Fate intervenes, and an Irish American welfare society helps him find work as a bootmaker in the town of Milford. Determined, Cornelius vows to save every penny and send it back to Ireland to support his family. Of Leather & Stone As the decades pass, a highly prized pink granite is discovered in Milford triggering a "granite rush" attracting skilled stonecutters from around the world, including Giuseppe Ambrosini, a master stonecutter from Lombardy, Italy, a region renowned for its stone craftsmen. He comes to America seeking his fortune in the pink granite quarries of Milford. Generations of their two families live through the most radical shift in industrial technology in the history of civilization, the disastrous effects of the American Civil War, widespread labor upheavals, the total collapse of the American economy, and the Irish Rebellion. These events profoundly affect them and their American-born children, who unite their two families in marriage at the height of the Roaring Twenties and in the aftermath of ‘the war to end all wars.’ The Remembering There will be no great fortunes or inheritance, no monumental works of art or science left for future generations. Instead, there will be profound life lessons learned from a lifetime of cutting and shaping leather and stone in Milford’s workshops and quarries. "Theirs is the common fate of common people: living their lives without fanfare, known only to those who worked with them and those who loved them, then forgotten by time—until one day, when they are remembered, and their names are spoken again by the living in THE REMEMBERING."

Tehran was well known to American businessman Jack Devlin until the day everything changed. When radical Islamic students stormed the US embassy on November 4, 1979, Jack narrowly escaped the revolutionary chaos, leaving behind 80 percent of his business and 100 percent of his heart. To get his beautiful girlfriend, Farideh, out of Iran, Jack accepts a devil’s bargain with the CIA and MI6. He must slip back into Tehran, where the militant students are holding dozens of Americans hostage in their own embassy. His part of the bargain is to steal the coveted client ledger of the world’s most powerful arms dealer, Mustafa Khaki, Farideh’s father. Surprised by an additional assignment, Jack is also ordered to strip a KGB defector of details on Russian collusion with Iran and their plan to eliminate the American hostages while infiltrating the highest levels of Ayatollah Khomeini’s government. From the damp cellars of KGB headquarters to the cold chill of British espionage to the blistering heat of the Kuwaiti desert, readers will learn, in an erroneous twist, that not all the turncoats are Russians.

The remarkable true story of a turn-of-the-19th century murder and the trial that ensued—a showdown in which iconic political rivals Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr joined forces to make sure justice was served—from bestselling author of the Edgar finalist, Murder of the Century. In the closing days of 1799, the United States was still a young republic. Waging a fierce battle for its uncertain future were two political parties: the well-moneyed Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, and the populist Republicans, led by Aaron Burr. The two finest lawyers in New York, Burr and Hamilton were bitter rivals both in and out of the courtroom, and as the next election approached, their animosity reached a crescendo. But everything changed when a young Quaker woman, Elma Sands, was found dead in Burr''s newly constructed Manhattan Well. The horrific crime quickly gripped the nation, and before long accusations settled on one of Elma’s suitors: a handsome young carpenter named Levi Weeks. As the enraged city demanded a noose be draped around his neck, Week''s only hope was to hire a legal dream team. And thus it was that New York’s most bitter political rivals and greatest attorneys did the unthinkable—they teamed up. Our nation’s longest running cold case, Duel with the Devil delivers the first substantial break in the case in over 200 years. At once an absorbing legal thriller and an expertly crafted portrait of the United States in the time of the Founding Fathers, Duel with the Devil is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction.

When Paul Collins''s son Morgan was two years old, he could read, spell, and perform multiplication tables in his head...but not answer to his own name. A casual conversation-or any social interaction that the rest of us take for granted-will, for Morgan, always be a cryptogram that must be painstakingly decoded. He lives in a world of his own: an autistic world. In Not Even Wrong, Paul Collins melds a memoir of his son''s autism with a journey into this realm of permanent outsiders. Examining forgotten geniuses and obscure medical archives, Collins''s travels take him from an English churchyard to the Seattle labs of Microsoft, and from a Wisconsin prison cell block to the streets of Vienna. It is a story that reaches from a lonely clearing in the Black Forest into the London palace of King George I, from Defoe and Swift to the discovery of evolution; from the modern dawn of the computer revolution to, in the end, the author''s own household. Not Even Wrong is a haunting journey into the borderlands of neurology - a meditation on what "normal" is, and how human genius comes to us in strange and wondrous forms.

A narrative history of the origins of Western civilization argues that Europe was transformed in the tenth century from a continent rife with violence and ignorance to a continent on the rise.

Intended for men and women, this volume presents readers with practical exercises to strengthen and tone your tummy, improve your posture, and increase vitality as well. It provides more than 100 exercises using the body''s own weight for strengthening, toning and reshaping various major muscles group.

The sensational story of the last two centuries of the papacy, its most influential pontiffs, troubling doctrines, and rise in global authority In 1799, the papacy was at rock bottom: The Papal States had been swept away and Rome seized by the revolutionary French armies. With cardinals scattered across Europe and the next papal election uncertain, even if Catholicism survived, it seemed the papacy was finished. In this gripping narrative of religious and political history, Paul Collins tells the improbable success story of the last 220 years of the papacy, from the unexalted death of Pope Pius VI in 1799 to the celebrity of Pope Francis today. In a strange contradiction, as the papacy has lost its physical power -- its armies and states -- and remained stubbornly opposed to the currents of social and scientific consensus, it has only increased its influence and political authority in the world.

Collins recounts how a grisly discovery in 1897 New York plunged detectives headlong into the era''s most perplexing murder. Seized upon by battling media moguls Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, the case became a publicity circus.

“Hearteningly strange . . . Collins exhumes little-known figures [and] recounts their perversely inspiring battles against the more logical ways of the world.” —The Onion Here are thirteen unforgettable portraits of forgotten people: men and women who might have claimed their share of renown but who, whether from ill timing, skullduggery, monomania, the tinge of madness, or plain bad luck—or perhaps some combination of them all—leapt straight from life into thankless obscurity. Collins brings them back to glorious life. John Banvard was an artist whose colossal panoramic canvasses (one behemoth depiction of the entire eastern shore of the Mississippi River was simply known as “The Three Mile Painting”) made him the richest and most famous artist of his day . . . before he decided to go head to head with P. T. Barnum. René Blondot was a distinguished French physicist whose celebrated discovery of a new form of radiation, called the N-Ray, went terribly awry. At the tender age of seventeen, William Henry Ireland signed “William Shakespeare” to a book and launched a short but meteoric career as a forger of undiscovered works by the Bard—until he pushed his luck too far. Collins’ love for what he calls the “forgotten ephemera of genius” give his portraits of these figures and the other ten men and women in Banvard’s Folly sympathetic depth and poignant relevance. Their effect is not to make us sneer or revel in schadenfreude; here are no cautionary tales. Rather, here are brief introductions—acts of excavation and reclamation—to people whom history may have forgotten, but whom now we cannot.

A Book Sense Fall 2005 History Channel Top Ten Pick Paul Collins combines present-day travelogue with an odyssey down the forgotten paths of history as he searches for the physical remains of founding father Thomas Paine. Paine''s missing body, like a saint''s relics, has been scattered in pieces around the world over the last two centuries-a brainstem in New York, a box of bones in London, a lock of hair in Edinburgh, a skull in Sydney. As Paul tracks down these remnants, he revisits the unusual life of Tom Paine-and in his search for Paine''s body, Collins uncovers that body''s soul.

Don and his friend, Ming Siou Loong, want to play in the National Doubles Championship, but they have to train hard and get money for airfare, just for starters.

The Inquisition ceased burning and torturing heretics in the 18th century; A milder punishment awaits the dissidents today, principally excommunication or banishment from official teaching positions. Paul Collins has discovered- through his own experience and extensive research that the impact of the Vatican''s investigations, through the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, can be quite profound. Collins is the controversial Australian Catholic priest recently investigated by the Vatican for alleged heresy. He served the Church for 33 years and is generally esteemed for his dry wit and his ability to make his vocation accessible a trait many appreciated in an increasingly secular world. The Vatican, however, views Collins''s less than reverential views as heretical and has been investigating him since 1997, when Collins'' book Papal Power was singled out for supposed "doctrinal problems."The Modern Inquisition, compiled over the four years that the mysterious and secretive CDF deliberated on Collins'' work, brings together the stories of others who have also been pursued, condemned, or vilified by the CDF. Here are seven fascinating accounts of how the modern Inquisition operates what it is like to be accused by anonymous informers, investigated in secret, and tried at arms length with no recourse to appeal.

The dramatic events leading up to the appearance of white smoke over the Vatican and the public declaration from the balcony of St Peters- Habemus Papam- has been the most remarkable yet in the election of any Pontiff. The demise of Pope John Paul II was anticipated ever since he was rushed to Gemelli hospital on February 1st. Now he has died the legacy of this outstanding Pontiff is already the matter of fierce debate. A number of his closest advisers like Cardinals Ratzinger and Sodano are already fairly powerless as the Conclave has chosen a Pontiff more interested in the North South axis than that of East West. The final part of this important new book is an in-depth profile of the new Pope, His Holines Pope XXX. The middle part of the book is an account of the Conclave, the poiliticing and the jockeying for position. But it also contains character sketches of those who have been serious contenders for the See of Peter- Cardinal Walter Kasper, Cardinal Tettramanga of Florence, Cardinal Christoph von Schonborn of Vienna, Cardinal Arinze of Nigeria , Cardinal Claudio Hummes of Sao Paolo and Cardinal Rodriguez Madariaga of Honduras. There is also a sketch of some of the complete outsiders. Nobody could be more suited that Paul Collins to werite this incisive and informative account. he has already published books on the History of the Papacy.

Beyond Priests contends that the requirements of the clerical priesthood of the Catholic Church—that all priests must be male, and that all priests must be celibate—is a gross distortion of scripture and the church’s early history that must be changed. While the roots of the modern priesthood go back to the fourth century and even more remotely to the presbyters or elders who advised local bishops in the early church, the contemporary priestly model is very much the product of seventeenth-century French reformers acting to apply a 1563 decree on the priesthood of the Council of Trent. The present-day priestly model has increasingly become harmful, even toxic, not only to priests themselves, but to the ministry and the Catholic community. Based on the historical analysis, Beyond Priests outlines a whole new way of approaching ministry and leadership that is in tune with contemporary needs, is inclusive of women and men, and is more authentically derived from the New Testament and the early church.

Although Dantar is able to shapeshift into dragon form, he still thinks like a rebellious teenager. His sister Velza has been given the ultimate gift by the dragons of Dracondas - the mind of a dragon. Now they must combine their gifts to stop the most powerful warlock of all time from casting his doomsday spell.

"Sixpence House is the bookworm''s answer to A Year in Provence." -Boston Globe Paul Collins and his family abandoned the hills of San Francisco to move to the Welsh countryside-to move, in fact, to the village of Hay-on-Wye, the "Town of Books" that boasts fifteen hundred inhabitants-and forty bookstores. Taking readers into a secluded sanctuary for book lovers, and guiding us through the creation of the author''s own first book, Sixpence House becomes a heartfelt and often hilarious meditation on what books mean to us. A #1 BookSense Pick "A delightful book."-Los Angeles Times "Collins'' gift is that you don''t care where you end up. The journey is enough."-Readerville "The real, engaging heart of the tale is Collins'' love of books and other people who love them...Collins muses on antiquarian books the way the rest of us remember lost loves."-San Francisco Chronicle "Funny, informative, somewhat chaotic and full of interesting references...there are numerous meanders into peripheral subjects, seen through the astute eyes of an Anglophile American."-Washington Post

“Well-researched and beautifully written.…Collins knows how to build suspense.” —San Francisco Chronicle On November 23rd of 1849, in the heart of Boston, one of the city’s richest men simply vanished. Dr. George Parkman, a Brahmin who owned much of Boston’s West End, was last seen that afternoon visiting his alma mater, Harvard Medical School. Police scoured city tenements and the harbor, and leads put the elusive Dr. Parkman at sea or hiding in Manhattan. But one Harvard janitor held a much darker suspicion: that their ruthless benefactor had never left the Medical School building alive. His shocking discoveries in a chemistry professor’s laboratory engulfed America in one of its most infamous trials: The Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. John White Webster. A baffling case of red herrings, grave robbery, and dismemberment, it became a landmark case in the use of medical forensics and the meaning of reasonable doubt. Paul Collins brings nineteenth-century Boston back to life in vivid detail, weaving together newspaper accounts, letters, journals, court transcripts, and memoirs from this groundbreaking case. Rich in characters and evocative in atmosphere, Blood & Ivy explores the fatal entanglement of new science and old money in one of America’s greatest murder mysteries.

When the spaceship Colony crash lands on Earth, the Skyborn elders aboard decide to exterminate the Earthborn, whom they believe to be no better than animals, before recolonizing the planet. On a reconnaisance mission, however, fourteen-year-old Welkin Quinn discovers that the "barbarians" possess skills essential to the space travelers'' survival. Includes Reader''s guide.

The first complete collection of Shakespeare''s plays was almost never printed. Only the machinations of several wealthy donors and publishers brought it into existence, and even then it was practically unnoticed. Many of the original 750 copies of Shakespeare''s First Folio were gone before the turn of the 18th century. But a hundred years later, the greatest plays in English were rediscovered, revamped, and re-publicized, beginning the long and surprising process that secured the legacy of Shakespeare. Broken down into five sections, each tied to a different location and century, The Book of William explores the curious rise of the First Folio: Frankfurt (17th century), Fleet Street (18th century), the British Museum (19th century), the Folger Shakespeare Library (20th century), and Meisei University of Tokyo (21st century). It recounts the book''s remarkable journey, as it lies undiscovered for decades, burns, sinks, is bought and sold, and ultimately, becomes untouchable. Finally, Collins speculates on Shakespeare''s cross-cultural future as more and more Folios migrate to Japanese buyers, who are entering their contents into the electronic ether.

Approx.312 pagesApprox.312 pages - Fully updated self-assessment section – ideal for current examination practice! - Includes useful ''Learning Objectives'' at the start of each chapter. - Pharmacological and disease management information updated in line with current best practice guidelines. - Includes recent research findings. - Discusses key aspects of patient communication – presented in easy ''Communication'' boxes. - Fully updated to include feedback from hundreds of students!

Earth Mysteries Calendar 2015 Dedicated to all citizens of the planet and their great interest in Earth''s mysteries.

Mack Max Dunstan has played Moses, Marc Anthony, Ben-Hur, President Andrew Jackson, and Long John Silver. He has starred in The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, El Cid, 55 Days in Peking, Planet of the Apes, Omega Man, and Soylent Green, to name a few. Sadly, in this age of social media, reality television, and political correctness, todays generation know him only for his hard right point of views and his outspoken nature. Mack Dunstans Inferno was written as a satirical, fantasy work, where Mr. Dunstan succumbed to Alzheimers, went through the death process, and descended into hell, where he met victims of his pro-gun policy. Collins was a fan of Mack Dunstan. This manuscript was actually inspired when the author viewed Michael Moore, who challenged Mr. Dunstan in Bowling for Columbine. The author did not support Mr. Moores penchant for skewing the facts, or promoting his own agenda, but has acknowledged the filmmaker for providing the inspiration for Mack Dunstans Inferno. Collins was never a fan of filmmaker Michael Moore. In fact he was utterly appalled and disgusted to hear how Mr. Moore accepted the academy award. The American Academy awards were about Gucci shoes, who was wearing what, and who''s sleeping with whom. It was never about social issues. Collins never understood how a movie director could become infamous through documentary filmmaking. Only in America! Mack Dunstans Inferno began with Mack Dunstan going through and experiencing the death process. As he journeyed, he met Virgil, who guided him through hell, heaven, and eventual illumination. In his journey, Mr. Dunstan met the many victims of his pro-gun policy. Many were Hispanic and African-Americans, all of whom were from the poorer classes. It was in this scenario of the underworld; Mr. Dunstan was confronted with the many sad and tragic stories, leaving him to go through the process of expurgation of guilt, anger, and elimination of the ego. Mr. Dunstan, however, did meet a lot of celebrities in his journey of the underworld. Some were from the silent era, golden age of cinema, and classic, American TV shows. Mack Dunstans Inferno was not only a satire on those who enjoy distinction in the modern era, but a parity, or update, of The Divine Comedy. Within in the perimeters of fiction, Collins satirized and the so-called pillars of the communities and media darlings. He lampooned present actors, dead actors, present/past members of the political and business elite. Therefore, instead of mentioning long, dead ancient figures of history, Collins sketched in Kelsey Grammar, Sally Struthers, or JK Rowlings. Mack Dunstans Inferno does not promote a dogmatic, Christian belief system, but an Eastern point of view. Find out more by reading Mack Dunstans Inferno, where sci fi adventure fantasy and religious superstitions will collide.

The Roman Catholic Church has always been concerned with the quality of the music used in the liturgy, and the essays in this volume trace the church''s efforts, during the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, to cultivate a more appropriate liturgical music for its Latin Rite. The task of restoration - expressed, for example, in the chant revival associated with the monks of Solesmes, the efforts of the Cecilian movement, and Pius X''s determination to reform sacred music in the universal church - is a recurring theme in the book. Meanwhile resistance, particularly to the reforms decreed by the pope''s 1903 motu proprio, also finds a voice in the volume. The essays collected here describe selected scenes and episodes from the unending story of imperfect human beings trying to express in their music the perfection of God.

The Sumerians are widely believed to have created the world’s earliest civilization on the fertile floodplains of southern Iraq from about 3500 to 2000 BCE. They have been credited with the invention of nothing less than cities, writing, and the wheel, and therefore hold an ancient mirror to our own urban, literate world. But is this picture correct? Paul Collins reveals how the idea of a Sumerian people was assembled from the archaeological and textual evidence uncovered in Iraq and Syria over the last one hundred fifty years. Reconstructed through the biases of those who unearthed them, the Sumerians were never simply lost and found, but reinvented a number of times, both in antiquity and in the more recent past.

When the city of Quentaris is uprooted and sent adrift in the uncharted rift-maze, Tab Vidler strives to adjust to the changes that this brings and to help her city deal with an invasion from the enemy city of Tolrush.

The youth of our nation are struggling. They are disconnected and adrift. Jesus has called us to reach them and those who feel the call often feel overwhelmed and unprepared as they face this seemingly insurmountable task. This book is written to give not only hope and encouragement, but tools that work. Even starting with nothing in a small church with a tiny budget you can be effective in reaching the youth of this generation, even if you don''t have a bible college degree. Hang on, this could be the greatest job you will ever love! Paul Collins is Pastor of Underground Fellowship in Green Bay WI and the founder of Oben Youth Ministries. He has worked with teens for 27 years in various capacities including adult sponsor, church scout group leader, bus driver, retreat cook, camp counselor, Sunday school teacher and Youth Pastor. He has a passion for reaching the teens of this generation and for helping small churches find the keys to building successful youth ministries with limited budget and resources. Paul and his wife Lisa have worked side-by-side starting with 6 kids in their basement to a multi-faceted youth program reaching out to teens who attend the local church and those with no church background alike.

The story takes a light hearted look at how life might be for children in the future. Subsequent stories will explore ways in which people in different places and in different conditions, cope with the problem of bringing the atmosphere back into balance and dealing sensitively with their environment.

What if you could eat lots of bread, cookies, buns and muffins without consuming so much carbohydrate? This cookbook is for those finding the eating of bread, cookies, buns muffins and sandwich so irresistible, but still want to eat healthy. A combination of sweet and Savory recipes you can make on any occasion, from your nutrition expert Tamara Collins. The recipes in this book are Ideal food for high fat, low-calorie Ketogenic, and Paleo diets, also a good substitute for sugary treats. With recipes you will find in this book, you can end your carb craving, food obsession and the restriction from other diets. You will be able to eat delicious and healthy bread and other lovely treats and get that weight and health you desire without starving yourself. It''s such a relief to know you can still eat sweet treats and stay healthy.