October Favorites

The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Proof of Heaven teams up with the sages of times past, modern scientists, and with ordinary people who have had profound spiritual experiences to show the reality of heaven and our true identities as spiritual beings.

When Proof of Heaven was published, some readers contacted Dr. Eben Alexander to argue that his near death experience was impossible. But many more have written to say his story resonated with them in profound ways. Because of what these people have told him, Dr. Alexander has come to realize that sharing his story has allowed people to believe what so many in ancient times knew: there is more to life, and to the universe, than this single earthly life.

Dr. Alexander met and heard from thousands of individuals whom his story has affected. He also studied what the world’s religious traditions, and its philosophers, have had to say about the soul’s survival of death, and he has been deeply surprised at how often those voices from the past synch up with what he heard from people today. In The Map of Heaven, he shares some of the stories that the people have told him and links them up with what the world’s spiritual traditions have to say about the journey of the soul.

Part metaphysical detective story, part manual for living, The Map of Heaven explores humankind’s spiritual history and the birth of modern science in the seventeenth century, showing how we forgot, and are now at last remembering, who we really are and what our true destiny really is.

“An insightful and harrowing roller coaster ride through the career of one of rock and roll’s greatest guitarists. Strap yourself in.” —Slash

“Rocking Joe Perry ‘rocks’ again!” —Jimmy Page

Before the platinum records or the Super Bowl half-time show or the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Joe Perry was a boy growing up in small-town Massachusetts. He idolized Jacques Cousteau and built his own diving rig that he used to explore a local lake. He dreamed of becoming a marine biologist. But Perry’s neighbors had teenage sons, and those sons had electric guitars, and the noise he heard when they started playing would change his life.

The guitar became his passion, an object of lust, an outlet for his restlessness and his rebellious soul. That passion quickly blossomed into an obsession, and he got a band together. One night after a performance he met a brash young musician named Steven Tyler; before long, Aerosmith was born. What happened over the next forty-five years has become the stuff of legend: the knockdown, drag-out, band-splintering fights; the drugs, the booze, the rehab; the packed arenas and timeless hits; the reconciliations and the comebacks.

Rocks is an unusually searching memoir of a life that spans from the top of the world to the bottom of the barrel—several times. It is a study of endurance and brotherhood, with Perry providing remarkable candor about Tyler, as well as new insights into their powerful but troubled relationship. It is an insider’s portrait of the rock and roll family, featuring everyone from Jimmy Page to Alice Cooper, Bette Midler to Chuck Berry, John Belushi to Al Hirschfeld. It takes us behind the scenes at unbelievable moments such as Joe and Steven’s appearance in the movie of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (they act out the murders of Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees).

Full of humor, insight, and brutal honesty about life in and out of one of the biggest bands in the world, Rocks is the ultimate rock-and-roll epic. In Perry’s own words, it tells the whole story: "the loner’s story, the band’s story, the recovery story, the cult story, the love story, the success story, the failure story, the rebirth story, the re-destruction story, and the post-destructive rebirth story."