David Sheff

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Boy explores the transformation of Jarvis Jay Masters who has become one of America’s most inspiring Buddhist practitioners while locked in a cell on death row. Jarvis Jay Masters’s early life was a horror story whose outline we know too well. Born in Long Beach, California, his house was filled with crack, alcohol, physical abuse, and men who paid his mother for sex. He and his siblings were split up and sent to foster care when he was five, and he progressed quickly to juvenile detention, car theft, armed robbery, and ultimately San Quentin. While in prison, he was set up for the murder of a guard—a conviction which landed him on death row, where he’s been since 1990. At the time of his murder trial, he was held in solitary confinement, torn by rage and anxiety, felled by headaches, seizures, and panic attacks. A criminal investigator repeatedly offered to teach him breathing exercises which he repeatedly refused. Until desperation moved him to ask her how to do “that meditation shit.” With uncanny clarity, David Sheff describes Masters’s gradual but profound transformation from a man dedicated to hurting others to one who has prevented violence on the prison yard, counseled high school kids by mail, and helped prisoners—and even guards—find meaning in their lives. Along the way, Masters becomes drawn to the principles that Buddhism espouses—compassion, sacrifice, and living in the moment—and he gains the admiration of Buddhists worldwide, including many of the faith’s most renowned practitioners. And while he is still in San Quentin and still on death row, he is a renowned Buddhist thinker who shows us how to ease our everyday suffering, relish the light that surrounds us, and endure the tragedies that befall us all.

How One Man Found Light in the Darkest Place

The Buddhist on Death Row

THE NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NOW A MAJOR FILM, STARRING STEVE CARELL AND BAFTA AND GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATED TIMOTHEE CHALAMET ‘What had happened to my beautiful boy? To our family? What did I do wrong?’ Those are the wrenching questions that haunted every moment of David Sheff’s journey through his son Nic’s addiction to drugs and tentative steps toward recovery. Before Nic Sheff became addicted to crystal meth, he was a charming boy, joyous and funny, a varsity athlete and honor student adored by his two younger siblings. After meth, he was a trembling wraith who lied, stole, and lived on the streets. With haunting candour, David Sheff traces the first subtle warning signs: the denial, the 3am phone calls (is it Nic? the police? the hospital?), the attempts at rehab. His preoccupation with Nic became an addiction in itself, and the obsessive worry and stress took a tremendous toll. But as a journalist, he instinctively researched every avenue of treatment that might save his son and refused to give up on Nic. This story is a first: a teenager's addiction from the parent's point of view – a real-time chronicle of the shocking descent into substance abuse and the gradual emergence into hope. Beautiful Boy is a fiercely candid memoir that brings immediacy to the emotional rollercoaster of loving a child who seems beyond help. Read the other side of Nic Sheff's bestselling memoir, Tweak. Praise for Beautiful Boy:- 'A brilliant, harrowing, heartbreaking, fascinating story, full of beautiful moments and hard-won wisdom. This book will save a lot of lives and heal a lot of hearts'. Anne Lamott 'An important book... moving, timely and startlingly beautiful.' Richard Branson

A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

Beautiful Boy

Combining personal stories and experiences with cutting edge research approaches, the author of the number one New York Times best-selling memoir, Beautiful Boy, describes a new way of treating substance addiction as well as accompanying mental illnesses. 150,000 first printing.

Overcoming Addiction and Ending America's Greatest Tragedy

Clean

More American children recognize Super Mario, the hero of one of Nintendo’s video games, than Mickey Mouse. The Japanese company has come to earn more money than the big three computer giants or all Hollywood movie studios combined. Now Sheff tells of the Nintendo invasion–a tale of innovation and cutthroat tactics.

How Nintendo Conquered The World

Game Over

The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

All We Are Saying

Moj piekny syn

Siempre serás mi hijo

Nic Sheff

Just Say Know! With drug education for children more important than ever, this nonfiction book draws on the experiences of the NY Times bestselling father/son team of David and Nic Sheff to provide all the information teens and tweens need to know about drugs, alcohol, and addiction. From David Sheff, author of Beautiful Boy (2008), and Nic Sheff, author of Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines (2008), comes the ultimate resource for learning about the realities of drugs and alcohol for middle grade readers. This book tells it as it is, with testimonials from peers who have been there and families who have lived through the addiction of a loved one, along with the cold, hard facts about what drugs and alcohol do to our bodies. From how to navigate peer pressure to outlets for stress to the potential consequences for experimenting, Nic and David Sheff lay out the facts so that middle grade readers can educate themselves.

Everything You Want to Know about Drugs, Alcohol, and Addiction

High

John Lennon

Yōko Ono

On the 20th anniversary of his death, a rare, poignant John Lennon document in print and updated.Lennon's last interview before his assassination on December 8, 1980, was first published in Playboy in a 20,000 word format in November that year. It saw limited distribution in the US in its full form as a 200-page book, reflecting 20 hours of tapes made in September 1980, but was never seen elsewhere, and is now a collector's item. This new, revised edition is published with the rare participation of Yoko Ono, and includes a new interview with her. Here John sums it all up: the Beatles, his former partners, his childhood, the seeds of rebellion and artistry, the creation of his music, the relationship with Yoko Ono, politics, sex, passion, peace. Interwoven with the transcripts of the interview sessions is David Scheff's reportage of their encounters, from recording studios to signing autographs for fans on those fateful Dakota Building steps.

All We Are Saying - John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Last Interview

Through its video-game system, Nintendo has dominated a growing industry and has transformed itself into one of the world's most successful and influential corporations. The success of the Nintendo invasion is one of remarkable invention and marketing, but it also depends on a ruthless scorched-earth policy rarely seen in any industry. The company uses "whatever is required -- threats, intimidation, coercion." Nintendo has swallowed up the toy and electronic-game industries and has set its sights on the entertainment, consumer electronics, communications, and computer businesses.

How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Children

Imagine living through the breakthrough moments of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and the other icons of today's new economy. The kind of technological revolution that they led in Silicon Valley is now sweeping through China, but with much more dramatic implications. The dynamic entrepreneurs who are using technology to radically transform business and cultural life in China are fighting not only outdated business models and a tumultuous economy but also an unpredictable government that has a love-hate relationship with the Net, at once pushing its expansion at a feverish pace and censoring it. As Duncan Clark, cofounder of BDA, an Internet consulting company in Beijing, told author David Sheff, "This environment -- the regulations, the competition, the political uncertainties -- makes these the fastest, most courageous, nimblest-thinking people globally. To deal with this level of risk and still sleep is no small accomplishment. But they're hooked on it like some Chinese are becoming hooked on Starbucks cappuccino." In this irresistible, groundbreaking book, Sheff takes us into the trenches of the Chinese technology revolution, introducing the major and minor players who are leading China into the twenty-first century. Players like Bo Feng, the charismatic former sushi chef who is now one of the leading venture capitalists in China. And Edward Tian, a national hero who has been described as China's Steve Jobs and Bill Gates combined, who left his own start-up on the eve of its IPO in order to lead the government's attempt to bring broadband to the entire nation, in the process leapfrogging the United States, Europe, and the rest of Asia with the longest and fastest network in the world. As the U.S. technological revolution wanes, business leaders will be looking to the billion-plus potential customers in China for new growth. In addition, the world's newest member of the World Trade Organization will no longer be a bystander in the global economy; it will be a fierce competitor. And when hundreds of million Chinese have access to unprecedented information and communication, China itself will be profoundly altered. Jay Chang, an analyst who covers China for Credit Suisse First Boston, sums the seismic nature of the changes: "What happens when China successfully transforms from a mainly agrarian/industrial nation into one that has significant input from the information technology industry? What happens when eighty percent of the state-owned enterprises in China are able to link economically to the global Internet on fast pipes? What happens when China's engineering talent pool is able to gain access to high-end computing resources and exchange ideas and information easily with their global peers? What happens when fifty percent of the Chinese population gets wired in ten years -- six hundred million people, the largest number of Internet users in the world?" With its compelling, character-driven story, researched over the course of three years, China Dawn will be the definitive book on the subject.

The Story of a Technology and Business Revolution

China Dawn

Yoko Ono

Contains the complete text of the Playboy interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, recorded shortly before Lennon's murder, and includes Lennon's song-by-song analysis of his music

The Playboy Interviews with John Lennon and Yōko Ono

Twenty years ago David Sheff climbed the back steps of the Dakota into the personal thoughts and dreams of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. From the kitchen to the studio and up those fateful Dakota steps, Sheff recorded 20 hours of tape, discussing everything from childhood to the Beatles. Sheff gives a rare and last glimpse of John and Yoko, one that seemed to look beyond the kitchen table to the future of the world with startling premonitions of what was to come.

Discusses parental misconceptions about video games, looks at issues of sex and violence, and describes the best and worst games

A Guide for Savvy Parents

Video Games

Looks at the technological breakthroughs sweeping through China and discusses the challenges facing top thinkers and entrepreneurs.

The last major interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, conducted by New York Times bestselling author David Sheff, featuring a new introduction that reflects on the fortieth anniversary of Lennon's death. Originally published in Playboy in 1981 just after John Lennon's assassination, All We Are Saying is a rich, vivid, complete interview with Lennon and Yoko Ono, covering art, creativity, the music business, childhood beginnings, privacy, how the Beatles broke up, how Lennon and McCartney collaborated (or didn't) on songs, parenthood, money, feminism, religion, and insecurity. Of course, at the heart of the conversation is the deep romantic and spiritual bond between Lennon and Ono. Sheff's insightful questions set the tone for Lennon's responses and his presence sets the scene, as he goes through the kitchen door of Lennon and Yoko's apartment in the Dakota and observes moments at Lennon's famous white piano and the rock star's work at the stove, making them grilled cheese sandwiches. Sheff's new introduction looks at his forty-year-old interview afresh, and examines how what he learned from Lennon has resonated with him as a man and a parent. This is a knockout interview: unguarded, wide-ranging, alternately frisky and intense.

David Sheff

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