Up From Slavery
By:  Booker T. Washington

Dover Publications (October 4, 1995)
176 pages

Up From Slavery, by Booker T. Washington is a how-to book on resilience. There are few better examples of rags to riches and simple persistence. Maybe not rags to riches – maybe rags to dignity. Along the way, Washington teaches hard-work, humility, thrift, and equality. Booker T. Washington’s life is a life to be emulated.

One of my favorite quotes:

“At Hampton I not only learned that it was not a disgrace to labour, but learned to love labour, not alone for its financial value, but for labour’s own sake and for the independence and self-reliance which the ability to do something which the world wants done brings. At that institution I got my first taste of what it meant to live a life of unselfishness, my first knowledge of the fact that the happiest individuals are those who do the most to make others useful and happy.”

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The Hiding Place
By: Corrie Ten Boom
Chosen Books; 35th Anniversary edition (2006)
272 pages

Corrie Ten Boom started in the arms of a warming family, became a master watchmaker and slowly watched as Germans invaded her native Holland. After the occupation, she smuggled Jews to safety through a network of wartime spies and finally found herself deep in Germany surviving the horrors of life in a concentration camp. Through it all, she relied on her faith and became a voice of hope, redemption, and forgiveness. This book is not to be missed.

Two of my favorite quotes:

Father sat down on the edge of the narrow bed. Corrie.” he began gently, ‘when do I give you your ticket?” I sniffed a few times, considering this. “Why, just before we get on the train.” “Exactly. And our wise Father in heaven knows when we’re going to need things, too. Don’t run ahead of him, Corrie. When the time comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need-just in time.

And then as we listed in disbelief she lowered her hands and, with tears still coursing down her face, whispered, “Dear Jesus, I thank You that we must come with empty hands. I thank You that You have done all-all-on the cross, and that all we need in life or death is to be sure of this.”

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